


The trailer

by MalikRuttingAssassinAss



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe, Baby James, Baby sitting, Canonical Character Death (sort of), Comfort/Angst, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Humour, Longing, M/M, Mass Effect - Freeform, Minecraft, Mud fighting, Teenage AU (18+), Vancouver, badly timed boners
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-16
Updated: 2013-05-16
Packaged: 2017-12-12 00:19:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/804929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalikRuttingAssassinAss/pseuds/MalikRuttingAssassinAss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Shepard honestly couldn’t remember the point in history he and Kaidan had decided their hang out was a run down, half skeletonised, old trailer home parked, or more specifically dumped in a maize field less than a mile from Kaidan’s house, and he was starting to question whether he was ever consulted on the subject."</p><p>Life's a bitch, Shepard realises, and it's getting sick kicks in standing in his way every time he tries to tell Kaidan just how he really feels. And when Kaidan's home-life goes from picture-perfect to something even he would run away from, there's no other alternative but to swallow his feelings and be there as his best friend's rock.</p><p>Now illustrated by the brilliant Rhapsody4u! So damn talented... <3</p>
            </blockquote>





	The trailer

Shepard honestly couldn’t remember the point in history he and Kaidan had decided their _hang out_ was a run down, half skeletonised, old trailer home parked, or more specifically _dumped_ in a maize field less than a mile from Kaidan’s house, and he was starting to question whether he was ever consulted on the subject.

 

But, they’d claimed it as their own for almost 3 years now. They’d made adjustments, covered the roof with a tarp, brought Kaidan’s old mattress into it when he got a new one, reconstructed the kitchen area somewhat and when Shepard managed to salvage some paint from decorating his room, he and Kaidan had painted the interior. It looked nicer without the mould.

 

It looked nicer without the graffiti dicks on the wall too, put there by their younger selves.  
  
So when the message came through;  
  
 _Wanna hang out?_  
  
He knew exactly where to go.

 

The rain had been pretty relentless over the past few days, so the dirt trail leading towards the maize field was a thick soup of mud and gravel beneath his ripped converse, and he soon began to feel it in his socks. He jumped the gate, murky puddles splashing up his legs as he landed and headed further into the field.  
  
The field had recently been harvested, for which Shepard was thankful for as he cut straight through, rather than in the summer where the maize stood too high for him to find his way through, forcing him to take the borders.  
  
Honestly, he should have brought his boots and a hoodie, but he’d been out already by the time Kaidan’s message popped up on his phone and there was no point heading past the field to get his hoodie and boots just to retrace his steps again.

 

He saw the blue tarp covering the holes in the trailer’s roof before he saw the structure itself. It had always had an air of welcome to it, Shepard couldn’t describe it, but if he had to, he’d say it was probably the wet dog smell, much like the smell of his room when he was a little boy, the dog he’d long forgotten the breed of curled tight on his bed after a well-needed bath.  
  
Shepard opened the door and stepped inside the trailer as he pushed away his thoughts.  
  
“Hey.” Kaidan murmured from where he sat on the kitchen counter, eyes and thumbs on his phone.

 

Ever the socialite.  
  
“Sup..?” Shepard sighed and made his way through the kitchen to the living room. He fell back against the mattress and took a deep breath of what was unmistakably _wet dog_. The blue tarp let little light in, but there was a battery powered space heater on beside the mattress which added a small amount of light, but also a lot of warmth in the derelict trailer.  
  
“Bored…” Kaidan muttered whilst venturing into the living room at long last, this time minus the phone. “Mom’s baking with that Asari M.I.L.F again.”  
  
“So, you pick to hang out with me than stare at Matriarch Benezia’s rack..?” Shepard groaned as he stretched out on the bed, hands sliding under his neck to support his head on the less than comfortable mattress.  
  
“She brought her daughter this time, Liara, I think she said.” Kaidan sighed harshly as he slumped down on the mattress beside Shepard, leaning back against the wall it was pushed up to. “I know all Asari look the same to you, Shep, but damn. Liara makes her Mom look like shit in comparison.”  
  
“Still doesn’t answer why you want to hang out when you got two Asari in your house,” Shepard grinned, nudging Kaidan with his knee. “getting all messy and dirty in your kitchen, giggling and licking icing off _your_ wooden spoon.”  
  
“…with my Mom.” Kaidan said flatly. “Plus, I think Liara saw me staring at her Mom’s ass and it got seriously awkward fast.”  
  
“Nerd.”  
  
“Dork.”  
  
Shepard cracked an eye open and smirked blatantly at his friend. Being older than him was fun sometimes, mostly during puberty when he was getting all the new _upgrades_ before Kaidan even had his braces removed. Still, they were a damn nice set of teeth now, straight, pearly, would look amazing nibbling down his stomach…  
  
Shepard glanced at the space heater and swallowed thickly.  
  
“Dad called today.” Kaidan sighed, legs stretching out beside his. “He’s still in enemy territory, but they’ve established a secure com, so we can talk at least.”  
  
“Is he OK?” Shepard asked as he turned on his side towards Kaidan.  
  
“Yeah, we didn’t get much time to talk to him, but yeah, he’s OK. I just… Every time he calls, it’s great, you know? It’s so good to hear his voice again, but when he hangs up, Mom just...” He released a breathy sigh and worked his fingers into his mostly tamed black hair, except for that one curl which refused to be brushed back with the rest.  
  
“I don’t know how to comfort her anymore…”  
  
“That’s rough…” Shepard whispered, pushing himself to sit up beside his friend. “You must miss him too, yeah?”  
  
“Of course. Without him it’s just me and Mom, and …” Kaidan grunted, swinging his fist down to punch the mattress. “Fuck, I mean, I know I’m supposed to be man of the house with Dad away, but shit, I need comfort too, you know?”  
  
Shepard nodded. He knew Kaidan had a lot of troubles, a lot of responsibility and a maturity that surpassed his age, but he also knew the guy was still looking at the world with the eyes of his 18 year old self. He acted 40 sometimes, prioritizing his responsibilities before having any real sort of fun.  
  
Shepard recalled the time Kaidan had to turn down the invite to the trailer because Kaidan needed to catch up on all the homework he’d failed to deliver the first time his Mom had a break down. And the time Shepard wanted to come over and play minecraft whilst sitting on Kaidan’s bed with their laptops, but couldn’t because his Dad hadn’t called on the scheduled time and his Mom ‘wasn’t in any shape to have visitors’.  
  
Shepard was half glad to be an orphan sometimes, but then he’d feel like a dick being happy the parents he couldn’t remember were dead and kept that thought to himself.  
  
“If my Mom can make friends with Matriarch Benezia and her daughter then that’d be a big step up for her. I… I’m happy to give her the space she needs…”  
  
“So that’s why you wanted to hang out, huh?” Shepard leant closer, nudging his shoulder against Kaidan’s. “Man, if I was half as considerate as you, Anderson would probably lose his shit in glee.”  
  
Kaidan finally chuckled, relaxing back against the wall and letting his hands slip away from around his knees. “ _This_ is why I wanted to hang out. I feel so far away from home when I’m here talking shop with you…”  
  
“I was thinking…” Shepard smirked, knocking Kaidan’s boot with his converse. “Spring break literally started yesterday, why not make this place our project?”  
  
Kaidan blinked, looking around the trailer.  
  
“It’ll keep your mind off things.”  
  
“And keep you out of trouble.” Kaidan grinned.  
  
“You know it.”  
  
They fell into a comfortable silence, listening to the pattering of rain on the tarp above them. John eventually closed his eyes, taking steady breaths quiet enough to hear Kaidan’s right beside him. Ever since the day someone had pointed at the strangely behaved 5 year old drawing clouds in the sand in the playground, he’d been fascinated by him. When a blurry face told him not to hang around with the _retard_ , he’d never wanted to hang out with the kid more. And from the moment Kaidan had smiled and let him draw clouds alongside him, he never wanted to leave his side.

“Wanna come back to mine..?” Kaidan suddenly asked. “It’s warm and has minecraft.”  
  
“Sold.”

 

                                                                           ***

 

Asperger’s syndrome. Apparently, Kaidan had it, but Shepard couldn’t tell and completely forgot about it most of the time. It was a behavioural and learning difficulty, a type of Autism, but Kaidan was the smartest guy Shepard knew. It really didn’t make sense to him in all honesty. He’d never read anything about it, just asked what it was the day Kaidan told him he had it, back when he was 9 and Kaidan was 7.

 

~  
  
 _“Makes me weird, people treat me different. Hey, Shep, what’s a retard anyway?”  
  
“It means the person who’s calling you that is a jerk. If someone calls you that, K, you tell me their name and I’ll deal with ‘em. Retard is not a nice thing to say.”  
  
“Even a teacher..?”_

_~_

Shepard would still grimace just thinking about that conversation. It was probably the same conversation which led to his absolute loss in faith for the education system all together, thinking about it. He’d hear through other students when Kaidan lost his temper, which he was prone to when he was younger and just couldn’t _grasp_ the concept of something because the teacher wasn’t explaining it properly.  
  
He’d find Kaidan in the corner of the playing field, trying to lose himself in his imagination as he fought one pebble against a larger rock.

 

~  
  
 _“They laughed at me.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“Teacher, the whole class.”  
  
“Why were they laughing?”  
  
“Cos my head hurts, but they didn’t believe me and I started crying and they laughed…”  
  
_ Shepard remembered the anger that flared like a firework inside him on that day.

 

 _“Lots of water is good for headaches.”_ Shepard had smiled and dragged the 7 year old to his feet, kissed him on the forehead and yanked him towards the watering fountain.

 

Because kisses always made something feel better.

 

~  
  
So, yeah, there had always been signs of Kaidan’s Asperger’s as a kid, from troubles understanding, to tantrums and the occasional bouts of not knowing why someone was upset when he came off surprisingly judgemental.  
  
That day, however, as he stepped inside the trailer, he could see something was definitely troubling his friend. He stood at the kitchen counter, fingernails picking the laminated wood surface as he stared through the green moss growing over the window, not unlike the times he spent staring out past the fence at school, his fingers clawed around the wire as he watched the passing traffic.  
  
“Hey.” Shepard called as he made his way from the door to the empty space behind Kaidan. “I got your message. Everything alright..?”  
  
“Yeah. Dad called again. Said something about Turians being the most bad-ass fuckers he’d ever seen, but I wasn’t listening.” He shifted on the spot, pressing his weight against his hands as he hung his head.  
  
“Kaidan,” Shepard started, pulling up beside the man and leaning back on the counter, trying to get a good look at him, but he just turned his face away. “Did something happen..?”  
  
“I just wanted to be here so much, Shep. When Mom’s phone started to ring, I knew it was Dad and all I could think about was being here…” Kaidan’s shoulders shook, trembles that vibrated down his arms and into his hands. “I just started shouting down the phone at my Dad. I told him he made Mom so fucking depressed. He didn’t even know she’s on anti-depressants until I screamed it at him.  
  
“Then Mom took the phone from me, told him I was lying, that I was just angry he wasn’t there… but…” He took a sharp breath in, bending forward until the backs of his hands, the fronts palmed over his face, hit the counter top. “Mom kicked me out and she won’t let me back in.”  
  
“K…” Shepard ran his hand between Kaidan’s shoulder-blades, feeling the spine and muscles hidden beneath the skin and t-shirt.  
  
“I just want to get away from it. Dad’s army business, Mom’s depression, the _fucking_ counsellor sessions that are _supposed_ to help… I’m so sick of it.”  
  
“You’ll be free when you start college.”  
  
“I’m not going to college, Shepard.” Kaidan groaned, straightening up from the counter. John looked over the blood shot eyes from earlier crying, or constant rubbing or maybe Kaidan had smoked something to try to forget about home, but he doubted the latter.  
  
“Oh…” Shepard breathed. “I… I guess you can’t.”  
  
“Unless I put my Mom in a mental institute, I’m not going anywhere. And with the way things are going, I doubt that’ll take much longer.”  
  
“So what are you going to do..? Stay here the night and hope a bear doesn’t come sniffing..?” Shepard leant his head over and rested it against Kaidan’s tensed up shoulder. “My bed’s single and shitty, but you can have it tonight, if you want it…”

 

He closed his eyes and listened to Kaidan’s breathing again, more feeling the exhale in the motion of his shoulder than hearing it. Kaidan didn’t say anything for a while. He usually mulled over decisions or even responses for a long time, but that was just how he worked, Shepard guessed.  
  
“I’m not going to take your bed from you.”  
  
“Well I hope not, I said you could use it, not take it.” Shepard smirked, feeling the shudder of a supressed laugh under his cheekbone. “Come…” He sighed. Kaidan didn’t struggle when Shepard wrapped his hand around his wrist and pulled him towards the door, nudging it open with his ass cheek before walking down the steps backwards. He didn’t want to lose eye contact with Kaidan, not when he understood just how much shit there was both waiting in his head and at home.  
  
“Kaidan…” Shepard said firmly when the brown eyes drifted down to the dirt road drifting past beneath them. He tightened his grip for a second on his wrist, then grabbed his other wrist and leant his weight back until Kaidan was forced to hold Shepard up, all whilst still walking.  
  
“Shep..?” Kaidan groaned, eyes rolling at his best friend’s behaviour.  
  
“Smile..?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Please?”  
  
“Negative, Shepard…”

 

“K, come on.” Shepard stopped walking, trying to stifle the moan that bubbled in his throat when Kaidan’s chest collided with his and for a few seconds their lips were in kissing distance, until Kaidan withdrew. “Would take-out make you smile?” He smirked instead. “Pizza, maybe?”  
  
“If pizza solved everything…”  
  
“Pizza’s like sex – never heard that saying? Even when the pizza’s bad, it’s still pretty good. I think it’ll help you forget everything west from here for at least five minutes.”  
  
“You’ve been on Tumblr again, haven’t you? You’re getting all sentimental and feely.” Kaidan shook his head and went to step around the older boy, but Shepard tightened his grip on his wrists and stopped him from moving. “Shepard.” He growled.  
  
“Smile… for me..?” Kaidan felt a hand leave his wrist and lay firmly between his pectorals, right over his sternum. “One smile and I swear you can be the most depressing fuck the rest of the night.”  
  
There was an extended pause, before Kaidan lowered his head and tried to stifle the smile that spread across his lips, but it was too late and Shepard was already grinning.  
  
“That’s what I’m talking about.” He whispered, taking in the sight of pearly straight teeth peeking out from between plush, scarred lips. He wanted to lean forward, melt his lips against Kaidan’s and taste those teeth with his tongue until he could slide onto his knees and put his tongue to better use, but that was something he didn’t want to dwell on in case it caused… _stirring_.

 

And sheer awkwardness that could potentially destroy all hope of ever looking Kaidan in the eye again, but that was becoming more difficult regardless due to the flitting fantasies Shepard’s depraved mind would drag up at the best of times.  
  
“Shep, you make it so easy to forget home.” Kaidan brushed past and Shepard finally let go of his wrists. “If uh… If you ever want to talk about stuff too, you can. I mean, I’m listening…”  
  
Shepard swallowed thickly.  
  
 _“I don’t think he was talking about admitting a crush I’ve had on him for years.”_ Shepard smirked at the thought, before realising he was giving Kaidan a pretty creepy look.  
  
“Yeah… that sounds good.” He whispered and then turned to walk ahead of Kaidan.  
  
                                                                           ***

 

The next time they met, Kaidan had sent a message to him on the extranet, asking him to come down to the trailer. Luckily Shepard had his phone notify him of social networking messages, otherwise he wouldn’t have checked, wouldn’t have read the message and wouldn’t be where he was right now.

 

But today, Shepard didn’t find Kaidan inside the trailer, but outside of it, crumpled against it, staring off towards the forest, not playing on his phone as he usually would have been by the time Shepard got to him. Shepard had to search the whole trailer before thinking he’d be outside, and that thought hadn’t popped up until after he’d checked under the mattress. Twice.  
  
“Hey, Shep.” Kaidan whispered.  
  
“You want to tell me why you’re sitting ass-deep in mud and _not_ inside the trailer?” Still, it didn’t stop him from stepping into the same mud just to get a closer look of his friend. He knelt down and as if two of the same charges of positive or negative sides of a magnetic, Kaidan’s face turned away.  
  
Shepard hated that all the time, never sometimes. It was always a struggle to get Kaidan to look at him when something was wrong. It wasn’t like Shepard came swooping in with a child’s television presenter attitude throwing candy in his lap, making a joke of Kaidan’s suffering.  
  
Well, sometimes he threw candy at him.  
  
“Spill.” Shepard frowned.  
  
Kaidan licked his lips, opened them, released a breath, but seemed hesitant, or just completely unwilling to speak. So Shepard moved, further muddying his jeans as he wrapped his arms around the younger’s waist and pulled him fully into his lap; he couldn’t care if he was getting dirtier, it wasn’t like he had a mother to tell him off.  
  
“Shepard- I…” Kaidan didn’t struggle as much as Shepard thought and eventually slumped into his chest. He was content there, Shepard realised, and the blood soon began to roar in his ears under the sound of the slightly chilling wind.  
  
He couldn’t look him in the eye, but he was OK with curling in his lap and pretending, or possibly _believing_ this was what normal, brotherly, friends did..? Whatever happened had made Kaidan not give a heap of Krogan shit, or this was another thing Shepard could put under the whole _Asperger’s_ thing, it didn’t matter because it confused the hell out of him regardless. And how many years had he had to understand Kaidan? More than most.  
  
“Kaidan.” He sighed into the black mess beneath his lips. “Is your Dad OK..?”  
  
“Yeah.” A simple reply, it made Shepard want to slam his head back on the trailer until he saw Tom  & Jerry chasing each other with hammers circle his head. Why couldn’t Kaidan just _tell_ him?

[ ](http://s127.photobucket.com/user/the-real-shadow/media/the_trailer_by_rhapsody4u-d694a89.jpg.html)

Illustration by Rhapsody4u http://rhapsody4u.deviantart.com/

“Good…” He forced out.  
  
“Yeah…”  
  
“Your Mom OK?”  
  
“Pff…”  
  
 _Dumb question._  
  
Shepard pulled his hand up from propping him forward in the mud, a smirk stealing his lips. Kaidan could be a miserable bastard all he wanted, but Shepard on the other hand wanted to play, play with fire he supposed because this could potentially blow up in his face.  
  
 _This_ being-…  
  
“Shep!” Kaidan yelped as John hurled them both against the ground, straight into the thickest slurry. Most of it was clay, and Shepard didn’t want think about what the rest was, but he didn’t care because Kaidan was cursing and rolling them over and tangling against him.  
  
“You bastard! You know how much shit I’m gonna get into?!”  
  
“No, because you won’t talk to me about it.” He grinned.  
  
“What if I don’t want to talk?!” Kaidan continued to shout. Shepard shook his head, feeling the mud seep deep into his hair. “What if I don’t want you to think all I want you around for is someone to bitch, whine and cry to..?”  
  
Kaidan dropped his head forward. His hair fell into his eyes, but Shepard could still see how they screwed shut in what was either discomfort from the mud, or something inside.  
  
“Shit, I… I’ve been thinking… for weeks all we’ve been talking about is my life, my problems… Sometimes I just want to be with you, Shep.”  
  
John chose not to misinterpret that as more mud made its way under his shirt and onto his skin. But the chill had to contend with the heat pressed over him, Kaidan’s warm hands wrapped around his wrists as his lips blew hot air against his own – struggling to not misinterpret what Kaidan said was increasingly hard.

 

“When we’re in my room, or yours, playing Minecraft or watching vids or doing homework, I feel like everything outside my door or 4 miles away is… gone.”  
  
Shepard made a habit of swallowing whenever there were words he wanted to say, words that could potentially fuck both his and Kaidan’s day. But this time, he swallowed due to the kind thought his brain supplied that the rest of the _mostly clay_ mud they were in was probably fertilizer. _Definitely_ manure.  
  
“I like when we spend time together.” Shepard replied, quelling that thought. “It’s never been easy for either of us, but… yeah… when we hang out, it’s… nice.”  
  
 _Nice as in, I want to watch your teeth scrape over my hard nipples, nice._  
  
“So, yeah, you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t want to ruin the moment by talking about my personal problems… constantly.” Kaidan shifted, hands sliding in the mud.  
  
“Kaidan…”  
  
“What..?”  
  
“Do you think I judge you when you tell me your problems?” He may have been thinking far dirtier thoughts than the mud around them, but he was still listening enough to realise what he had _implied_.

 

There was a momentary silence. The deep garnet eyes above him, partially hidden by hair caked in mud, looked as if he wanted to apologise, for either thinking that way about Shepard or for how Shepard may have misunderstood, but he didn’t say anything, and Shepard was cool with that for once.  
  
“I wanna mud wrestle.” Shepard grinned.  
  
Kaidan blinked.  
  
“I wanna get so fucking dirty with you, K.”  
  
The birds singing overhead were almost comical as Kaidan opened his mouth in shock, all before John stretched up, knocked him to the side with a palm flat on his chest, then proceeded to try to pin the younger into the slurry.  
  
Small splashes of brown water flecked up as Kaidan’s back hit the earth, before he was struggling his slippery wrists from John’s grip and pressing his heels hard into the mud to try and buck him off.  
  
The curses soon fell into a bubbling laughter the longer they spent rolling new patterns into the once untouched mud pit behind the trailer. It hurt when Kaidan slapped a hand against his arse when an unintentional slip landed Shepard’s knee straight down into the fleshy area of his inner-thigh, but then he remembered Kaidan _slapped his arse_ and the hand print that was left there and suddenly the sting didn’t matter.  
  
He was so hard in his jeans. Grunts, chuckles and breathless gasps erupting from Kaidan’s lips beneath, and over, then beside him had that effect.  
  
But it wasn’t appropriate, dear God, he knew that for sure. He could run home, jump in the shower with clothes still on and push his hands down his pants later, when he was sure Kaidan wasn’t going to be there to realise just how much of a freak he actually was.  
  
So when he was thrown over, his back slapping into the earth like a fish on the deck he was seriously worried when Kaidan straddled his hips and pinned him down tight. His mouth opened, ready to retort, call him something that would make it easier for Shepard to get the upper hand again, but suddenly, it was like he was seeing Kaidan for the first time that day.  
  
He was wiping the mud that had been on his face from the very beginning, breathless, wet with both water and sweat and…  
  
John had seen Turkish oil wrestling on the extranet, but it didn’t come close to this. This was real, in front of him, straddling his hips, his _erection_ that John hoped Kaidan mistook for a lump of dirt against his arse. The hand print was probably covered by a complete layer of mud now, but the slap was still against his skin, it was probably bright red, Kaidan’s hand had done that.  
  
“You tapping out..?” Kaidan whispered breathlessly.  
  
Shepard could’ve said something about _tapping_ something of Kaidan’s but the urge never arose.  
  
"Yeah…” He said, his voice husky from exertion _and_ erection.  
  
Kaidan shifted to put his weight into his knees and let go of Shepard’s wrists. It had the sudden and deliciously bad result of Kaidan’s arse settling completely over his confined erection and without warning, he was arching and hissing tightly through his teeth.

 

Of course the reaction was damn obvious; just not the reasons, thankfully.  
  
“Shit, I didn’t hurt you did I?” Kaidan stood and offered Shepard a hand.  
  
“Haha, Alenko hurting Shepard, not gonna happen.” Shepard waved off the help and stood by himself. Chances were the mud would’ve made it difficult for Kaidan to pull him to his feet, given how slippery it was. How slippery they both were.  
  
Shepard grimaced at the twitch his cock gave at the thought.  
  
“Come back to mine.” Shepard almost groaned. “Hose down in the yard, shower, food.”

 

 _Whatever you want, just come with me._  
  
Kaidan looked ready to say no the second his lips stopped curling up into a smile.  
  
“Please.” John cleared his throat, trying to be less breathless and _creepy_ , but damn, he was talking to Kaidan and he _still_ felt that slap on his arse. He could almost hear the battle of decision going on inside Kaidan’s head, like fighting a skeleton who’d got the jump on you whilst mining for coal and desperately trying to cycle from your torches to your iron sword at the same time.  
 _  
Damn I wanna play minecraft. With Kaidan. Naked. And not so much play minecraft but-_

“Alright.” Kaidan sighed, shrugging his shoulders. “Sure, I’m game, but I’m paying for pizza this time. Sick of you pity buying me fast-food.”  
  
“I don’t pity buy, I wanted the pizza too.” Shepard huffed and carefully shifted out of the mud, careful not to leave his shoes behind. “I um- uh.” He groaned. “I’m gonna need that shower first though… feeling it down my pants right now…”  
  
 _And I wish I meant just the mud._  
  
                                                                            ***  
  
He’d seen vids of girls hosing each other down, usually with beer or champagne or milk – seriously strange vids, and not all porn, some commercials – but it hadn’t prepared him for hosing Kaidan down. There came a point where you just _had_ to say something about how much something turned you on, but Shepard was well-trained in stifling things he wanted to say, so much so his bottom lip was on verge of bleeding now.  
  
Kaidan’s shirt was white.  
  
Nipples.

 

_Nipples, fuck, nipples._

“Shit!” The younger cursed when the water spraying from the hose hit his chest again, ripping a moist gasp from his throat that hitched at the end and became a cough. Shepard couldn’t do anything but stare and keep the hose pointed at his best friend. It didn’t matter if his mouth had fallen open, or if he couldn’t tear his gaze away, because Kaidan was too busy cursing him out, shivering and swiping mud from his eyes to notice.  
  
 _But nipples._  
  
Shepard hadn’t seen much of Kaidan under the clothes, except when they went swimming in younger years or had sleep-overs where it became too hot for pyjama tops, back when Shepard had liked Invader Zim, not hot guys, and giggled at the very idea of having a penis, not having one inside him.

 

God, Shepard was still recovering from the day he realised he wasn’t like _most guys_ , who liked girls, wanted to put their dick in them – or at least in the right _hole_ – kiss them on the mouth and actually think of _them_ , of their breasts and supple skin and not…

 

But Kaidan had been there during that awful time. When he’d tried it with a girl and found he just couldn’t… _get there,_ and it had taken thinking about the girl’s hot brother to come. Kaidan was not physically there, not at the time of sleeping with the poor girl, that was just silly, but there emotionally after. He’d asked him the same questions as he’d asked himself, but with Kaidan he’d been able to answer, unlike his reflection in the mirror.

 

~  
  
 _“When I thought about her brother, I just closed my eyes and kissed her neck, thinking about his neck, his rough stubble and…”  
  
“And you came.” Kaidan had been stirring his coffee at the time, but stopped when _ ‘came’ _slipped past his lips.  
  
“Yeah… it felt amazing, but then she was coming too and I lost the illusion and… fuck, Kaidan, fuck!” He remembered punching the wall, putting a dent in whatever thin material made up the trailer’s walls.  
  
“Was he hot..?”  
  
“Who..?”  
  
“Her brother. Was he hot..?”  
  
“I dunno, might have been. I was kinda more into his sister at that point, but… now that I’m thinking about it, yeah. He had these lips, looked soft, you know? Like… I wanna fuck him, like I thought I wanted to fuck his sister but…”_

_Kaidan had sat patiently, blowing over the rim of his mug._

_“I might… ask him out…”  
  
“Oh yeah?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
And Shepard had. He remembered kissing her brother in the back of her brother’s car, sliding into his lap and letting him push a finger inside him as they kissed. He could never remember her or her brother’s name, it had been when he was 17, technically under-age, but when had he cared?  
  
He remembered tasting beer and taffy and smelling sweat in the air as he was introduced to anal sex in the back of an old Ford. He had never felt so alive, groaning, riding hard, setting his own pace as her brother bit at his throat and sighed hot over the spit until he was a trembling mess._

_Shepard could even remember the conversation beforehand as well._

_“You’re not talking to my sister anymore.” He’d said.  
  
“No, yeah, I mean… we er… it was a mutual thing. It’s my fault, I’m not…”_

_“You’re not good enough for my sister anyway.”  
  
Shepard tried not to rip holes in the backseat, his fingers clawing into the fabric from sheer nerves.  
  
“Am I good enough for you?” He almost spat in retaliation. This guy was three years older than him, 20, he could get into some serious trouble if it got out he’d fucked a 17 year old kid.  
  
But he hadn’t cared and had all but ordered Shepard into his lap, kissing, fingering, opening and undressing him until he’d literally fucked him into the back seat.  
  
~_

 

“So good.” Shepard breathed as the cold water hit his belly.  
  
“Good? I’m freezing my balls off!” Kaidan grit his teeth hard around a shudder, lips almost blue from the water. Shepard took stock of himself. His erection was gone, which was nice, and so was the lack of mud, just stains left on his clothing and two incredibly hard nipples peaked under his shirt.  
  
“Alright.” He grinned. “Turn the hose off, we’re done here.” He began to undress, the back yard being more or less private except for maybe the old people who lived in the house over the road, but they’d have to be on the roof to see anything.  
  
“Hopefully the sun stays out long enough to dry these.” John suddenly realised the flaw in his plan. He took a hard swallow and went a little stiff. Shit, Kaidan was going to be naked too when he turned round from hanging their wet clothes on the line, and it was a struggle to keep his dick down with clothes _on_.  
  
“Hey day-dreamer, Anderson’s cat is staring at us.”  
  
“She sees me naked all the time.” Shepard replied nonchalantly as he turned, keeping his eyes squarely on Kaidan’s and not anywhere else but damn that was difficult when the one guy who ever made Shepard feel like he could settle down and be happy with was standing naked in all his glory.  
  
“I worry about that.” Kaidan grimaced and turned towards the back door. “Can we go inside before my balls develop frost?”  
  
 _Ass._  
  
“Sure.”

 

_Ass._

“Thanks. Is anyone home?”  
  
 _Ass_.

 

“No. Anderson’ll be home around 6. Miranda and Jack are at summer camp and James is with Anderson.”  
  
 _Ass._

 

“James..?”  
  
 _Holy fucking ass! Eyes up, Shepard!_  
  
“A new orphan Anderson’s fostering. He’s 2. Really cute and… yeah… parents were killed in service.” Kaidan turned to look at him, seeming to want to apologise, but for what? He probably asked himself that too and turned back to the way he was headed, leaving the unnecessary apology unspoken.

 

“How long has he been with you guys..?”

 

“He’s been here a couple of months. Still scared of everything that’s louder than a freaking cough, but I guess that’s what happens when you’re sitting in a cot and a bunch of Batarians shoot the shit out of your parents in the next room.”  
  
“Holy shit…” Kaidan breathed and actually stopped and turned towards him. John kept his eyes on Kaidan’s, not allowing his gaze to drop lower than the mole on Kaidan’s neck, or his collar bone, or his nipples or _– fuck – already looking at his junk._

“Is …” John rose an eyebrow at Kaidan, waiting for him to continue speaking. “Is that how… um…”

 

“Oh.” He suddenly realised what Kaidan was trying to ask. His arms dropped to his sides, his eyebrows knotting together and for once, he didn’t have a witty remark for Kaidan, or words alone. He didn’t want to go there, and he meant _really didn’t._

 

He didn’t make a habit of lying to Kaidan, and he wouldn’t start now by telling him a fake story about how his parents died because…  
  
“I don’t remember it… but… Anderson knows… He’ll tell me if I ask, but…” He just didn’t know, didn’t _want_ to.  
  
“I’m sorry, Shep, I didn’t mean to… to… yeah…”

 

“James is a really good kid.” John forced the subject change before the heart-to-heart got awkward.  
  
 _Well, more awkward than a naked heart-to-heart anyway._

 

_And much less awkward and more ‘my dick may join this conversation at any moment’._

 

Which Shepard supposed would lead to more awkwardness.

 

“I’m looking forward to meeting him. Anderson’s so fucking awesome. Fostering all you guys…” Kaidan turned and continued walking again.  
  
“He’s legally fostering us, but hell freeze over if he actually wants any of us to be adopted. We’re like his kids…”  
  
“You gonna ask if he’s gonna adopt you, or any of the others..?” Kaidan asked.  
  
“I’m 20 years old, K.”  
  
“So..? You don’t have to be a kid to be adopted.”  
  
“Can we…” Shepard sighed. “I really don’t want to talk about this whole adoption stuff right now… A lot of rules, regulations and legal-shit I have no right to know about…”  
  
Kaidan chuckled low under his breath, shaking his head.

 

“Too lazy to tell me, typical Shep…”

 

 Shepard followed Kaidan up the stairs and holy _fucking Christ_ , if his hard staring left bruises, Kaidan’s arse would be covered in them. The perfect curve under each cheek, the way it bounced on each step without the support of underwear or jeans, the dimples above each one. Absolutely _amazing._  
  
“We should totally let him hang out with us if you have to baby sit him.”  
  
“I’m babysitting him tonight. Anderson’s going away for a military meeting with Hackett tonight. He’ll be back tomorrow evening… but…” Shepard almost groaned when he was forced to take the final steps and lose eye-level with Kaidan’s fine booty. “I want you to stay over and help me. You’re the responsible one.”  
  
“Sounds fair.” Kaidan shrugged and opened the door to Shepard’s room. “Say, you gonna let me walk around naked until Anderson gets home, or are you gonna lend me some sweats..?”  
  
“Kinda wanted to watch you strut around my place butt-naked…” Shepard bit his lip, forcing back a groan from fighting the pressure trying to make his dick swell. “First draw of my dresser. I really need a shower, so help yourself.” He pulled back from his doorway and headed further down the hall to the communal bathroom. God, he just wanted to grab that arse so hard, crane his head down and swipe his tongue over the bouncy plains of flesh.  
  
He slammed and locked the door and threw himself bodily into the shower cubicle. He hit the dial and ground his teeth when the water hit his flesh, cold, blisteringly cold until the combi-boiler kicked in with a sputter and began to heat the water. It felt so good, heavenly even. But he knew something that was going to make it a shit ton better. He grabbed the shampoo and worked it into his wet hair, grinding the hardened mud from his scalp with a moist sigh, water dripping from his nose as he craned his neck forward and grasped himself with a soapy hand.  
  
 _No more tears shampoo, huh? At least it doesn’t sting._  
  
Shepard didn’t even want to think about the tea tree oil shampoo he’d once mistakenly used for less _cranial cleansing_ purposes.  
  
He squeezed himself, tipping his head back to wash the shampoo from his hair and bite back a moan. With another stroke and a _twist_ , his knees weakened and forced him to put his weight back against the wall beside the shower controls. He took steady breaths, reaching his other hand to roll his balls in his palm as the other teased his tip.  
  
Shit, if Kaidan ever knew about this…  
  
Actually, there was something strangely exciting about that. He could imagine Kaidan peaking in through the keyhole – which didn’t have a key and the door was locked with a latch anyway, so why a key hole? – and seeing him like this, hands around his sex, working himself into a heat, throwing his head back, gasping _his_ name and thinking he was bucking into _his_ entrance or _his_ mouth and…  
  
Shepard knocked his head back against the tiles, a stuttering gasp escaping him as he spilled over his fingers and down his thighs. Shit, he hadn’t considered Kaidan being a voyeur until that moment and he was way too sated to think _why_ that was such a turn on. Probably something about him having to bend over naked to look into the keyhole, he didn’t know.  
  
He washed off the rest of his body, scrubbing hard at the flaky dirt until it wash black down the drain. He was sated, finally and…  
  
fuck…  
  
Better use a towel to cover himself, unless he wanted Kaidan to see his sated dick.

 

He turned off the water, stepped out and grabbed a towel – the towel, which he promptly used to scrub his hair and his body dry, then wrap around his waist. He genuinely toyed with the idea of leaving no towel for Kaidan so he’d have to return naked and wet and – _nope. Stop. Put a towel down for him you masochist._  
  
Shepard hooked a towel on the hook on the back of the door where he had gotten his from and left to return to his room.  
  
Kaidan was sitting on the side of his bed, back to the door, still very much naked with two pairs of sweats beside him, boxers sitting on top of one pair.  
  
“Shower’s free.” Shepard called.  
  
“That’s cool. I got you a pair of sweats and undies out… I thought about borrowing some undies too, but that’s kinda… weird…”  
  
“So you’re just gonna rub your dick all over the inside of my sweats instead?”  
  
“You almost sound happy.” Kaidan smirked and stood from the bed. He rounded it, and Shepard, and disappeared through the door towards the bathroom and – _God damn Kaidan._

_Just… ho-fuck, damn, shit. Don’t smirk at me whilst almost bending over my bed and being so damn naked and I can see your dick._

 

Shepard pulled off his towel and began to scrub his hair dry again when something on his desk caught his attention. He hadn’t realised his phone had been left behind when he’d gone to the trailer, but then again, he was half glad it had. God knows it would have probably _finally_ died from the abuse. He picked it up and unlocked it, smiling briefly at the wallpaper.

 

Him and Kaidan at Pax East last year with foam Minecraft pixel axes and creeper face t-shirts. Best day ever. Such a horrific nerd-fest and he hardly remembered it because he’d _shared a hotel room_ with Kaidan and more importantly _shared a double bed_ with him. But it’d been different than now. Sure, he’d been turned on by Kaidan sharing the bed, but when it came down to it, he hogged the sheets and kicked him in the shin at some point.  
  
Full-on cock block.  
  
Now though? If he had to share a bed with Kaidan, he’d hold him, it didn’t matter to him how awkward it would be anymore, he’d grab Kaidan and pull him to his chest until he was so close it would be impossible to steal the sheets away.  
  
 _Creepy, Shepard, stop it._  
  
And then it hit him.  
  
Kaidan’s phone was probably – no – definitely in his pocket. In his trousers, the very wet trousers on the clothes line outside, in the back yard. The trousers that were wet because Shepard had been a fucking idiot and mud wrestled him.  
  
And now…  
  
He didn’t think about it, he just went downstairs, out into the back yard and pulled the phone out from Kaidan’s back pocket. The screen was cracked, water damaged and the back cover had been broken off.  
  
 _Great, you try to make him feel better and all you do is break his phone._

 

Shepard cringed and put the pieces of the phone in one hand, marching back into the house with a mission. He was going to make it better, because Kaidan’s mum was probably going to call at some point, and if she didn’t speak to her son, she would probably lose it completely. He grabbed his own phone and worked the back off it, then slid the sim card out of Kaidan’s phone and slid it into his own. He restarted his phone and leant back, wincing a little at the chair pulling against the skin of his arse.  
  
His phone flickered to life, working and registering Kaidan’s sim now. He threw the phone on the bed and then went about seeing if he could do anything for Kaidan’s phone. Answer was no. The screen was truly smashed, water had invaded the screen area and it didn’t even turn on anymore. It was more broken than that minecraft server Shepard had tried to create.  
  
 _Need to play minecraft, possibly with James, definitely with Kaidan – must teach James about minecraft. Start them young._  
  
“Hey Shep.” Kaidan sighed as he entered John’s bedroom. He looked over his shoulder to find the younger staring at him, more importantly staring at his phone in John’ s hands, not where he last left it. “What are you doing..?”  
  
Not ‘why is my phone broken?’

 

Not ‘did you break my phone?’

 

And not ‘what the fuck did you do!?’  
  
Just ‘what are you doing..?’ – like he’d just walked in on Shepard playing with Anderson’s cat.  
  
“I kinda just realised your phone was in your pocket when…” John hesitated, then shrugged and held his phone up for Kaidan to see, but the boy only nodded and redirected his eyes at him again.  
  
“I put your sim in my phone just in case your mom wanted to call you… Didn’t want her to worry about you if she couldn’t get a hold of you.”  
  
“If my Mom can’t get a hold of me, then she should bloody know why!” Kaidan suddenly shouted. John rose from his chair, eyebrows heading the same direction as his best friend seemed to try and quell his anger. It had been pretty sudden, and pretty irrational, but Kaidan never got angry for any reason, he just hid the reason _all the time._

 

“K… Kaidan, I’m sorry, I didn’t… I’ll get you a new one, I mean, I’ll try. It might be second hand though-”  
  
“My mom broke my phone, not you!” Kaidan yelled.  
  
There was a thick silence as that information suddenly settled in. John twisted his head, looking down at the broken phone on his desk, then back at Kaidan.  
  
“You messaged me on Facebook today…” He whispered.  
  
“Yeah…”  
  
“Why did she…?”  
  
“She’s… She’s got this thing in her head that I’ve been telling Dad about her counsellor sessions and medication and losing her voluntary position at the kid’s hospital because of her mental instability… I was texting at the table, texting you actually, and she just kind of grabbed it and threw it.”

 

John shifted, moving forward and running his fingers to push back the wet locks fallen over Kaidan’s eyes.  
  
“Mn… and then we argued… I was kind of in shock, just wanted to get out, you know? I went to my room, sent that message on Facebook and then got the fuck out… I know it was just my phone, and she didn’t throw it at me or anything, but it… it was scary.”  
  
“Yeah, I bet. Why does she keep thinking these things about you..?”  
  
“Ever since that whole _shouting down the phone at my Dad_ thing, she’s had it in for me about it…” Kaidan sighed hard and heavy, leaning into Shepard’s touch. “I really think she’s losing her mind, John. I keep calling her counsellor, trying to get him to talk to me about it because I really think Mom’s gonna do something stupid one day, but he won’t tell me jack-shit… That fucking doctor/patient confidentiality bullshit drives me nuts.” He hung his head, biting his bottom lip between his teeth even though Shepard had already seen it quiver. “I’m so fucking scared, Shepard… She’s my Mom, and seeing her like this… What am I going to do..?”  
  
“I don’t know… but we’ll figure this out, I promise…” John brought his fingers up, clasping both of Kaidan’s cheeks and giving a light kiss to his forehead like he’d done to Kaidan as a kid. “It’ll be OK.” He whispered over the same spot, lips brushing the skin.  
  
Kaidan didn’t reply as he sniffed and instinctively brought his hands up to wipe his eyes. He’d been with Kaidan for 12 years, and he’d only seen him cry a handful of times. Anderson said it was damn impressive given the _Asperger’s_ Kaidan had, and even more so with the amount of difficulties his home life provided on top of that – not exactly broken home, but not exactly _fixed_ either, so Shepard knew Kaidan was utterly… _lost_.  
  
When he was frustrated, confused, couldn’t grasp the concept of something, he’d get angry, but Kaidan understood why this was happening, he wasn’t frustrated or confused, he was crying out for help and no one was willing to give it to him. Shepard felt like punching society in the non-existent guts until it spewed the help Kaidan needed.  
  
“You’re not alone in this, Kaidan. I’m gonna help you… I’m not gonna let you suffer this alone…” He pushed his thumbs under Kaidan’s chin, his fingers stretched over his cheeks, and levered his face up. “I know you find it difficult to talk to people about this stuff, and… I’m really happy you tell me everything, honest to God I am… so let me talk to those legal fuckers… I know the law.”

 

Kaidan released a wet chuckle, sniffing hard and swiping a finger under his left eye.  
  
“Thanks, Shep… I’m… I’m so fucking happy you’re here…” John felt Kaidan’s hand clasp his wrist, then watched as his forehead pressed against his palm and a trembling breath brushed over his veins. He swallowed, keeping focused on Kaidan’s eyes, the ones squeezed shut with dark circles underneath. He closed his own eyes, leaning forward and letting his forehead rest against Kaidan’s temple and just remained, offering silent comfort for his best friend.  
  
“I want to be here, K…” He whispered. He felt a sensation all of a sudden, and as he opened his eyes again, he found Kaidan looking at him up close, the feeling of being watched suddenly obvious. He moved a little, directing his head more towards Kaidan as the boy swallowed thickly and followed the same action. His fingers trailed down from his cheeks to his neck, then swept over his collarbone and before he could make a decision he would never regret, but knew Kaidan would, he wrapped his arms around his neck and pulled him in tight and hard.  
  
“Shit, I’ll always be here for you, no matter what. Even ‘til we’re old as fuck, screaming at cats and pissing our pants whilst staring at a toilet, we’ll be there for each other…” John smiled into Kaidan’s shoulder, taking an extra deep breath to subtly take in the smell of baby shampoo on Kaidan’s skin and hair.  
  
“Pissing our pants together sounds so…” Kaidan sniffed hard and sighed, his hands balling tighter over Shepard’s back. “… so fucking disgusting…”  
  
“That’s how we roll, K.” Shepard slowly withdrew and wiped a tear away from Kaidan’s lip. “Let’s get some clothes on, then pizza, yeah?”

 

“Sounds good to me…” Kaidan smiled, or at least tried to for Shepard’s sake before he was dropping the towel and …

 

Shepard looked away, not being able to believe he’d just…

 

And _he_ had just…

 

Kaidan had to have known, it was so damn obvious, he’d been standing there without a towel for so long, Kaidan must’ve noticed…  
  
And Kaidan’s was the same…

 

Had they both..?  
  
“Shep..?” Kaidan blinked, straightening up from pulling up his sweats before he was tying them to fit his waist.  
  
Kaidan had definitely … because Kaidan’s hadn’t looked like that before he had showered and…

 

In _his_ shower too..?  
  
Shepard’s mind was short-circuiting like crazy. There was something about his and Kaidan’s dicks that just… changed after they either had sex or masturbated, it was probably the same with all men, but of course Shepard hadn’t seen _all men’s_ dicks to compare, just his and Kaidan’s and…

 

Yeah, definitely…

 

“Shepard, you’re staring…” Kaidan sounded annoyed now, like he usually did when confused. John was just glad he’d chosen to look _away_ from Kaidan’s prick before staring. He shook his head, smiling softly and swiping a hand over his eyes.  
  
“Just thinking…” He tugged the boxers up his legs and over his privates, and then stepped into his sweats. As he tied them around his waist, he met Kaidan’s eyes again and continued to smile, not like _I know what you did_ , but; _I fucking love you._  
  
Shepard only wished he could say it – or even scream the words which hurt so much to keep inside.  
  
“Order what you want, K. I’ll have whatever you’re having…”  
  
“Maybe we should wait to order. I mean, it’s only 5 and I’m sure you’ll want to help Anderson pack before he heads off, and then we’ll have James to take care of…” Kaidan glanced to the phone still sitting on the bed. “You know you can put your sim back in your phone… Not sure I want to answer anything from Mom anyway…”  
  
“Yeah, sure ok… anything you want.”

 

                                                                                ***

 

Anderson had come home earlier, around 5:30, had lectured Shepard into a coma and left around 7:30, taking two bags and a folder with him. Kaidan stood beside Shepard as he saluted Anderson from the door, then closed it and turned towards the 2 year old sitting on the floor by the stairs.  
  
They’d fed him, changed him after the failed potty-attempt and had been sitting with him on the sofa for the past half hour.  
  
“Shouldn’t he go to bed soon..?” Kaidan whispered, watching the toddler’s head swoon then jolt up again, trying to focus on the cartoons before it was lolling to one side.  
  
“Oh, damn, yeah.” Shepard stood and brought James against his hip, pulling his head forward a bit so it dropped against his chest rather than hung back awkwardly. Kaidan followed into the boy’s nursery, the room right next to Shepard’s, which was a stroke of luck in case James started crying during the night – or not, depending on how he looked at it. With the boy already in his pyjamas, Shepard carefully lowered him into his cot, which was beginning to look too small for him.  
  
“Dark hair, dark eyes… pretty cute kid.” Kaidan whispered as Shepard tucked the blanket over him, making sure some of it bunched up against his cheek because he knew James liked it when the blanket brushed his cheek for some reason.  
  
“Yeah, I’d like to adopt one day. You know, for when I… meet the right person, get married and settle down…”  
  
“I dunno, Shep. Technology might change. The Asari might develop a way for men to give birth or something… man, I did not need to think about that one.”  
  
“You imagining me all pregnant, Kaidan..?”  
  
“No, but now, yes.” He shuddered and stepped away from the cot. “Come on, pizza before I end up losing my appetite completely.  
  
Shepard chuckled quietly and followed. He was still thinking about earlier when he saw Kaidan’s sated prick after he’d pulled his towel away. It looked so… appealing. He’d seen dicks before, not cared much for them, not even _her brother’s_ dick got him going as much as just the sheer _thought_ of Kaidan’s, and he’d been masturbating in _his_ shower.  
  
He pushed the image away because his dick was about to do a cartwheel inside his sweats.

 

                                                                        ***

 

“Kaidan, I swear to God.”  
  
“Kaidan, I swear to _fucking God!_ ”

 

“I had to collect your stuff, idiot, there was a creeper there.” Kaidan mumbled from the desktop in the corner. “Just because you dug straight down into lava, doesn’t mean all your resources have to go to waste too.”  
  
“You better give me my diamond sword.”  
  
“When the fuck did you get diamond?” Kaidan snapped. “I bet you spawned shit.”  
  
“There was diamond right fucking next to me where I died! I was _trying_ to mine it!”  
  
“Was there..?”  
  
“Hey, don’t be a dick, I’m at the house, come back and give me my stuff.” John grumbled from where he sat on the floor against the desk Kaidan was sitting at.  
  
“Getting diamond, be-ar-be.”  
  
“Never say that again.”  
  
“Why don’t you just teleport to me..?” Kaidan sighed, nudging John with his foot.  
  
“No, last time I did that I got stuck in a wall and died. Teleport to me...”  
  
Kaidan sighed hard and began to type into his keyboard. “Such a whiney bitch…” He paused, then smirked and turned in his chair, hitting the pause button on his screen. “Saw you and the pizza-guy eyeing each other up. You got a new guy, Shep?”  
  
“So funny, diamond sword please…”  
  
“In a minute, I wanna know about this pizza guy. You guys were talking like you knew each other. He looked about your age too… Maybe my age.”  
  
“Your age, and yeah, I know him.” John sighed and placed his laptop on the floor after hitting pause too. “Joker, he’s straight as fuck though. He’s got brittle-bone disease, but he works hard – even drives, got his own car, loves the damn thing. It’s probably why he’s single. But believe me, I was more interested in the pizza than anything else.”  
  
Kaidan smirked and folded his arms. “And if he was into you, would you..?”  
  
“No.” John snorted. “I’m not a whore, Alenko. I don’t just sleep with any guy who wants to put their dick up my ass, or vice-versa. There’s such thing as dignity, and I believe you’re lacking in it right now.” He grinned and slapped the inside of Kaidan’s thigh.  
  
“Hn… hey, shit it’s almost 2 am.”  
  
“I thought you wanted to finish the chicken pen before we went to sleep..?”  
  
“Fuck the chickens.” Kaidan groaned as he stretched back out into the chair. “Uuufff… they trampled my crops, I’m not happy.”  
  
“That why you killed them all?”  
  
“Yeah, and I also needed food and feathers.”  
  
Shepard shook his head and went about saving the server and shutting the laptop down, Kaidan doing the same beside him.  
  
They eventually made it back to Shepard’s room and glanced at each other. There was a question there somewhere, but Shepard didn’t see it until Kaidan had shrugged and climbed on into the very much _single_ bed beside Shepard, or more precisely, _against_ Shepard.  
  
“Did you check on James..?” Kaidan breathed against Shepard’s throat.  
  
“Yeah, he’s fine, should be all the way until 8. We can move to Anderson’s bed with him when he does wake up and put the cartoons on…”  
  
“No, that’s OK. I can get up at 8 and give him breakfast and… watch him until you get up…”  
  
John made a non-committal noise and brushed his nose into the black, unruly hair. He slid his fingers over Kaidan’s arm, tightened his grip once and slid his hand down between their chests, as if to say _thank you_ , but too tired to say it. He should’ve been going crazy curled up with his best friend like this, touching him, Kaidan’s arm slung over his waist and his breath spreading warmth across his Adam’s apple, and in some sense he was. He was hyper aware of it, almost, but he was also extremely tired and the bed called for him.  
  
“Shep..?”  
  
“Hm..?” John breathed.  
  
“I just… today… Thank you… You didn’t have to do this…”  
  
“Kaidan, you don’t need to thank me… I… fucking love you, you know..? ‘Do anything f’you…”  
  
He felt Kaidan settle more firmly against him, as if he was waiting for that to snuggle closer, bury his nose into the hollow of Shepard’s collarbone and plant a light kiss there. Shepard blinked his eyes open at that. He took a deep breath, staring at the wall his bedroom door was built into as his fingers returned to Kaidan’s hair, rubbing lightly over the scalp and touching the soft locks left completely untamed since the shower.  
  
“I love you too, Shep… Couldn’t imagine living without you… Shit, you’re the only friend I have, the very best…”  
  
 _Fuck, if I could be more Kaidan, if I had the chance, if you’d let me, I’d make you so fucking happy.  
  
_ Shepard worked his other arm under Kaidan’s waist and pulled him flush against him, feeling the calm heart beating against his own rapid one.  
  
“If I didn’t have you…” He didn’t finish, leaving his mouth open against Shepard’s left pectoral before he sighed hard and shook his head. “Doesn’t bare thinking about…”  
  
“Then don’t think about it.” John shifted, pulling Kaidan up until he was eye-level. “We’re sticking together no matter what. Understood..?”  
  
“Yeah, of course.” Kaidan chuckled tiredly, studying Shepard’s features, the features he’d had all the time in the world to memorise, but constantly found new things to stare at. “No matter what…”  
  
John grinned and chuckled, closing his eyes to the darkness that drew him deeper. “We might fall out if you don’t let me sleep, though.”

 

“Yeah, OK, just wanted to get it off my chest.”  
  
“M’kay, but… Yeah… Sleep, K….”

 

                                                                          ***

 

“Hey, look who it is.”

 

Shepard rubbed fiercely at the sleep dust in his eyes, blinking away the morning blur until the room came into focus along with its inhabitants. Of course Kaidan would make good on his promise to take care of James whilst Shepard himself got a couple of extra hours sleep, Shepard knew he would, still didn’t stop him from feeling like a huge jack-ass.  
  
“Hey…” He breathed deeply, stretching out and popping his joints with a satisfying click – _that shouldn’t feel so utterly amazing at my age._

 

Kaidan was sprawled out over the sofa, and it just looked so strange, something ripped from one of the fantasies he had about Kaidan.

 

It’d go almost the same every time; after a long night of just touching, holding, fucking each other into a world of bliss, he’d come down stairs and see Kaidan laid out on the sofa wearing _his_ sweats in the morning because his trousers had been ripped/in the wash/stained terribly/lost in general the night before.

 

And minus James, who seemed to enjoy Kaidan’s chest as a pillow with far more innocence than John did.  
  
“You look like poop.” Kaidan smirked, turning his attention back to the cartoons. “Lucky I took care of James for you, huh? I brought our clothes inside, put them through the washer and dryer and now… well, yeah, they’re clean.”  
  
“You… uh…” Shepard sat down on the sofa with Kaidan, gently knocking his feet aside. “You can stay all day, I mean, Anderson’s not home until 8 and… I could use company that’s not going to scream the house time every time a door slams.”  
  
“Hey, easy.” Kaidan scolded, pressing his palm over James’ uncovered ear. “He’s been through a lot, I think you can forgive him for being scared.”  
  
Shepard frowned, rubbing the heel of his palm hard enough into his eye socket that white burst into his vision like mini supernovas.  
  
“D’you eat anything yet..?” He mumbled instead of apologising, like he should’ve, like Kaidan was expecting him to do.  
  
“No, I was waiting for you to get up before I started making anything.” Kaidan hesitated. “You need to eat, you’re turning all diva. Hey James,” He sat up, making the child look up to him with big dark eyes filled with… what Shepard could see was probably annoyance from having his attention pulled away from cartoons.  
  
“You wanna come help me make pancakes? We gotta feed Shep here before he turns into a big monster and starts eating the TV.”  
  
“Hey, don’t give him ideas; he already thinks Anderson’s cat is secretly Tom from Tom & Jerry. He keeps trying to give it his toy hammer.”  
  
“Smart kid. Getting the animals on his side to fight thieving little mice, genius.” Kaidan stood, taking the toddlers hand, who still went without speaking, just a nod to show he wanted to help, and walked off towards the kitchen.  
  
Shepard couldn’t help himself. He had to smile. Having Kaidan here with him made everything all the better. Seeing Kaidan acting so… what was it..? Motherly? _Motherly_ over James, it made him want things he never would have otherwise wanted. He’d taken James by the hand, smiling, making a silly voice so James wouldn’t be afraid of him when he didn’t have to have anything to do with the child at all, he was Shepard’s responsibility.

 

It made him want not just _Kaidan_ but everything the man could offer in the future as well. Children, a house with a white picket fence, a dog and a cat that got along like those YouTube videos, long walks along English bay, hand in hand with both him and their kids, just smiling and being able to be happy and…

 

Shepard grimaced, tipping his head back against the sofa because he knew it wasn’t what he could have, regardless of how much he may long for it now he’d thought about it.  
  
He flinched when a metallic clang came from outside. Usually the mail being delivered scared the shit out of James, but he didn’t hear crying or whimpering or anything – in fact, he was pretty sure he just heard the kid ask Kaidan where eggs came from. He got up and swiftly made his way outside, grabbing the mail and picking up the newspaper on the re-entry.  
  
“Hey, where did you go..?” He looked up from the mail, then promptly dumped it to the side once he’d found nothing for him besides the usual junk mail and monthly carpenter’s catalogue.  
  
 _Not junk mail – need new sander._

“You getting clingy, Kaidan..?” Shepard smirked as he moved around the corner and entered the kitchen. “I was getting the mail.”  
  
“Shirtless..?”  
  
“Damn straight.” He grinned, watching Kaidan bend over the table to set the pancakes down for them. He couldn’t resist the urge to press himself against Kaidan’s back and make a mock purr in his ear; “Thanks, honey…”  
  
Kaidan tensed, not just a little, almost dropping the pancakes on the table instead of carefully placing them. He took a steady breath and looked over his shoulder, mouth quirked to the side.  
  
“What the hell is that..?” He almost choked.  
  
“What..?”  
  
“There’s something really hard pressing against my ass. Something big, hard and hot…”  
  
“Hey, fuck yourself.” Shepard pulled away more to avoid an embarrassing boner than out of any real offense.  
  
“What, on your dick? You think I’m some kinda slut, Shep?”  
  
“Yup.”  
  
“Prick.” Kaidan scowled, smacking John in the chest before pulling James up to sit in his high chair. “You think it’ll be OK for him to eat pancakes..? He didn’t eat much of his Weetabix, and I think he’s more interested in the pancakes anyway…”  
  
“Yeah. He’s down with the pancakes.” Shepard fell into his chair and started cutting into the stack drizzled with maple syrup. “Hey, K, you never talk to me about this, when was the last time you ever…” He hesitated, glancing at James. “ _…slept_ with someone.”  
  
“You mean not including last night..?” Kaidan flicked an eyebrow at him and smirked.  
  
“I meant… s…e…x.”  
  
“I know what you meant… and er… I’ve not… Come on, Shepard, you know me, I’d tell you the second I got lucky, right? Have I _ever_ told you..?”  
  
“You told me about the time that girl’s dad walked in on you and almost threw you out the window…”  
  
“Yeah, I … heh, I lied.” Kaidan brushed a hand over his neck and swallowed thickly. “I had sex with a guy, and his dad _didn’t_ interrupt us, but I wish he did…”  
  
“What…”  
  
Kaidan glanced up, knotting his eyebrows together before hanging his head, careful not to dip the locks of his hair in the maple syrup. “I know I should’ve told you, but… then you would have probably done something stupid to the guy. I mean… Not like you knew him or anything, but you _do_ have a habit of beating the shit out of anyone who calls me _stupid_ , let alone hurts me physically…”  
  
“He _hurt_ you, Kaidan..?” Shepard made sure he placed his cutlery on the table before he bent them in his fists.  
  
“It’s not like I didn’t ask for it. He’d done it once and I was completely virgin. Mistakes were made and I couldn’t walk properly for what was probably a few weeks…”  
  
“You said you’d landed funny jumping out that girl’s window, but… Kaidan, you should’ve told me. I could’ve helped, you know..?”  
  
Kaidan scoffed, shovelling another mouthful of pancakes into his mouth.

 

“It’s true! He could’ve done some real fucking damage, K! Did he even prepare you or lubricate himself, or what..?” Shepard had kind of forgotten about the two year old smearing maple-syrup coated fingers over his bib and more than likely James had forgotten about _them_ in return.  
  
“No, we… we weren’t thinking, we just cut loose and went for gold, you know..? He freaked out when he saw blood and high tailed it.”  
  
“Blood..?” John swallowed and lent forward, brushing his hands over his cheeks and mouth. “K…”  
  
“I went to a clinic and got everything … _fixed_ … but it still hurt… Look, Shep, we can’t all lose our virginity to hot 20 year olds with more experience than anyone in town, there’s gonna be some who make mistakes, and I did, and you can’t change that… OK..?”  
  
“I can kick that guy’s ass. _No one_ fucks with you, leaves you bleeding and _lives._ ”  
  
“John.” Kaidan frowned, pushing the remains of his pancakes around the plate. “Drop it, please.”  
  
“Why should I?”  
  
“Because you nearly got a criminal record beating the crap out of a kid who called me a retard in middle school – you probably would have _killed_ this guy! I’m not letting you fuck your life up because you don’t know when a fight isn’t yours to win!”  
  
Shepard blinked, leaning back in his seat at Kaidan’s outburst as if the words had been a pair of hands shoved against his chest. He felt a bit winded, his mouth opening to retaliate, but he couldn’t get further than the first letter of Kaidan’s name before he fell silent again.  
  
“You always protect me, Shep. And I appreciate it, fuck, I love you for it… But I can’t let you ruin your life in the process, you know..?”  
  
Shepard wanted to knock the table out of the way, grab Kaidan by the face and kiss him so hard his teeth would break his own skin inside his lips, but there was such thing as _good timing_ and this was not it.  
  
“John… I’m…”  
  
Shepard looked at his friend again. Kaidan looked back.  
  
“I’m enlisting for the Alliance, Shepard. I spoke to my Dad, and he agrees it’s for the best.”  
  
“What..?” Something was being slowly torn from his chest, something big, something important, something very _Kaidan._ He took a controlled breath, then leant forward onto his elbows and pushed his face into his hands. If he could pretend he was still dreaming, that this was just his imagination playing funny tricks on him, then he’d be able to _breathe_ again at least.

 

“My grades are good, my criminal record is non-existent, they offered me an apprenticeship as a tech specialist and… if there’s a single chance for me to use my biotics to protect our planet, then I’m gonna do it.”  
  
“Kaidan, don’t…”  
  
“Shepard…” Kaidan reached across the table and smiled. “They’ll activate my L2 implant, it’s what it was put in there for in the first place, not just to shut off my biotics, but help me control them when it was turned on. If I can prove human biotics are a fundamental asset to the Alliance, just like Asari, then at least I would’ve left a mark, you know..?” He wrapped his fingers around Shepard’s wrist and gave a soft shake, trying to pull it away from his face. He finally got what he wanted and clasped Shepard’s fingers tightly in his own, enough to get him smiling just as much as Kaidan was.  
  
“I’m coming with you.” Shepard breathed, fighting the sting in his eyes with everything he had. “I was thinking about enlisting too, Anderson suggested it, but I didn’t want… to leave you behind… Not with everything happening with your Mom at home…”  
  
“Shepard… You realise, when we enlist, we’ll have to move to London, right..? No more minecraft, no more trailer, no more school or our friends or days spent hunting each other down in the tall maize field before it’s harvested…”  
  
“Yeah I know that… But we’ll be doing our part for Earth and we’ll have each other’s backs. Always.”  
  
“Always.” Kaidan smiled.  
  
Shepard swallowed, tightening his grip on Kaidan’s hand in his own. He didn’t want to let go, even though the table was pressed pretty uncomfortably in between his ribs, and he was sure Kaidan was the same.  
  
“Listen, K…” John started, leaning further over the table and running his thumb over the back of Kaidan’s knuckles. “There’s things I wanna say… I want… I _need_ …I…” He flinched suddenly, hand going to the pocket of his sweats to pull out the phone that had chosen the worst possible time to start ringing.

 

“It’s your Mom.” Shepard whispered, frowning at the caller I.D. It said ‘mom’ and unless his phone was possessed by the ghost of his dead one, it must’ve been Kaidan’s. He remembered now, he’d forgotten all about taking Kaidan’s sim card out. “You … wanna talk to her..?”  
  
“Yeah, sure… Might as well…” Kaidan rolled his eyes, frown deepening as he took the phone from Shepard, his other hand still grasping the other’s tight.

 

“Hey Mom…” He murmured, voice attempting a lighter tone, but failing. He just sounded submissive, if Shepard had to name it. “I’m with Shepard, yeah… Anderson’s away so I’m helping him take care of James…”  
  
Shepard smirked at the two year old watching them both from the chair, looking grumpy as can be for being sat in the chair for so long, but he didn’t complain. Shepard wasn’t sure James ever did, he was just _such_ an easy-going kid, except for loud noises.

 

“I’ll be home late, is that OK..? No, I really don’t want to talk-… Mom, just listen.” Kaidan pulled his hand away from Shepard’s, pressing his knuckles against the bridge of his nose until the talking down the other end stopped. “I was going to tell you when I got home, I promise!”  
  
“Kaidan..?”  
  
“I’m not angry because you were going through my stuff, you’re my mother, you have a right to… Just… stop crying, please..?” The biotic took a deep breath and rolled his head back on his shoulders, eyes squeezing tightly shut. “I’ll see you tonight and then we can sit down and talk about it, I promise.” Kaidan didn’t say goodbye, simply ended the call, turned the phone over, fumbled the back off and retrieved his sim card.  
  
“Everything OK, K..?”  
  
“Mom found my stash.”  
  
John rose an eyebrow.  
  
“My Alliance stuff… not… yeah. I mean letters, brochures, information… She obviously read the letter concerning the position they wanted to offer me, the human biotics division… I um…” He chuckled. “I have a lot to explain when I get home.”  
  
“She knows about your biotics right..? It must have been kinda hard to ignore a baby glowing blue in the cradle.” Shepard took his phone back, but grabbed Kaidan’s hand again before he could pull away. “If you want to go home now to sort everything out with your Mom, I won’t hold it against you.”  
  
“No, I want to be here…I mean, if I’m still welcome..?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
Kaidan grinned softly, then shifted and stood. “Better get James here washed and dressed before he starts attracting bears.”  
  
“Yeah… Hey, I’ll do that, you stay down here and relax, OK? Seriously, K, for me…?”  
  
Something about what Shepard said made the biotic grin more, a perfect set of teeth greeting him as he drew closer, handing the sticky two year old to his friend.  
  
“I do a lot of things for you nowadays, Shep… I suppose it couldn’t hurt relaxing a bit… Though, last night, I believe, was the best sleep I’ve ever had…”  
  
John swallowed thick and hard, lips opening to spill his guts to him, figuratively.  
  
“Kaidan…”  
  
“Poopie.” James suddenly chimed in.  
  
Kaidan blinked at the toddler, then grinned at Shepard and stepped backwards to clear the table. “Good luck, soldier.”  
  
Shepard grumbled and turned on the spot, heading up the stairs to the bathroom. “Bro, seriously, you gotta work on your timing a bit better.” He whispered to the child.  
  
James giggled, something bubbly from the pit of his stomach.

 

                                                                            ***

 

The trailer had called to Shepard that day, not on his phone or a message over Facebook, he just suddenly felt that was where he needed to be. Anderson _almost_ questioned him when he grabbed his hoodie and boots and flicked the hood over his head, but he knew Shepard wasn’t up to no good, no matter how late in the night it was.  
  
“Shepard..?” He rose an eyebrow.  
  
“Heading to the trailer, Anderson.” John replied, and that was that.

 

Shepard got on his bike and started pushing the pedals hard. He could’ve walked, fuck, he could’ve run, but the bike would’ve gotten him there faster, especially now with the ground so hard and dry. He needed to get to the trailer for reasons unknown even to him, but there was something inside him just screaming at him to go.  
  
So he did, pushing himself until his thighs burned from exertion and his hands had blisters from the handlebars.  
  
Once he’d gotten to the field’s gate, he dumped his bike against the fence and pretty much _threw_ himself over into the field. The maize still had to be planted, the farmer was probably waiting to till the field before planting, and he needed another rainy week for the ground to be pliable enough to do that, so Shepard cut straight through, his legs beginning to ache from the movement, but he didn’t care.  
  
He slowed to a walk once he got within a few metres of the trailer and stepped up to the door.  
  
“Hello..?” He called. Nothing answered, or no one or- shit, John didn’t know what he hoped to happen once he’d gotten there, but he knew he was _supposed to be_ because the feeling hadn’t faded.

He ventured further into the trailer, through the kitchen and into the front room. He noticed a lump on the mattress, a curled up figure that he recognised with stalker speed.  
  
“Kaidan.” He blinked and lowered himself down beside the form. “Kaidan, are you OK..?”  
  
The body shifted, shoulders hunching upwards in what seemed like a fight-or-flight response to Shepard’s presence, before Kaidan was turning onto his back and darting his reddened eyes up to his friend.  
  
“Shep..?”  
  
“Yeah… What are you doing..?” John took in the red of Kaidan’s eyes. He didn’t like the thought he looked either stoned or desperately tired or both, but he knew he should put aside judgement until Kaidan told him what was going on. Although if Kaidan had been smoking something, he couldn’t deny he would be insulted for the lack of invitation.  
  
“Lying here…” He replied, innocently enough.

 

“ _Why_ are you lying here..?”  
  
There was a pause, Kaidan’s eyes going to the blue tarp roof peeking through the struts. Then suddenly, it was as if John’s question had reminded Kaidan of exactly why he was there in the first place. His eyes went a bit wider, then moistened, then slammed shut as he recoiled onto his side and curled up tight.  
  
“Oh God…” He whimpered.  
  
Shepard tried to comfort his friend, still in absolute confusion over his behaviour, with a hand on his forearm, but Kaidan shrugged it off and hissed something that sounded like ‘ _don’t’.  
  
_ So, he sat instead, a silent weight beside Kaidan on the bed until he could see Kaidan’s body convulse with quiet sobbing. He couldn’t just sit there and say nothing whilst his friend _suffered_. True, there was always something wrong with Kaidan, and he never wanted to talk about it, but fuck damn, this was the worst he’d seen in his friend.  
  
“Talk to me.” He whispered as he slid onto the mattress and curled up against the non-functional biotic. He wrapped an arm around Kaidan’s belly, feeling the contractions of the silent sobs. “Please…”  
  
Pressing his lips against his shoulder seemed to work, or rather Kaidan could guess now that Shepard wasn’t leaving until he knew everything, so he finally let go.  
  
“They came to the door…” He choked.  
  
Shepard paused, eyebrow lifting and arm pulling tighter, pulling Kaidan completely against him and if it wasn’t for the heaving sobs Kaidan was trying to stifle, Shepard would be more than a little turned on.  
  
“Who..?”  
  
“Alliance…”  
  
The word, uttered in a single, wavering breath, was all Shepard needed to hear. He curled tighter against Kaidan, bringing him further into his warmth and laying his forehead against the back of his neck, soothing, or at least trying to.  
  
“Kaidan…” He reached a hand around, under Kaidan’s armpit and brushed his fingers through the soft, black hair resting over his ear. “Speak to me.”  
  
“I don’t know what to do, Shepard.” He sniffed hard, the trembling more violent than before. “Mom’s… She’s… I can’t help her.”  
  
“Kaidan, take a deep breath.” John whispered as he pulled against Kaidan’s chest and turned him onto his back and then sat up so he could see his face better. “Did your Mom do something..?”  
  
“No, but she will soon.” Kaidan choked, pressing his wrist over his eyes. “God, they showed me photos! So much fucking blood…”  
  
John felt his breath hitch in his throat, the realisation suddenly pouring into him like acid in his veins. “Your Dad…”  
  
“He’s dead, Shepard.” Kaidan sobbed, drawing his arm from his eyes. “He’s dead and Mom… I tried to tell her, even the Alliance officers tried, but she just wouldn’t sit down long enough, she kept trying to bake them a _fucking_ cake! Then she just started crying and wailing on the floor in the kitchen and I tried to help her but she kept pushing me away…” He paused, slowly sitting up to wipe the tears from his eyes. “The Alliance officers finally took her to a hospital for shock… I wanted to go, but they said it wasn’t a place for kids… I wanted to argue, I wanted to do a lot of fucking things, but I didn’t… so I came here, to think…”  
  
“I’m not leaving you like this if you were implying I should leave…”  
  
“No, I don’t want you to… Actually, I was hoping you’d come.”  
  
Shepard smiled a little and reached down, stroking the infernal lock of hair back off Kaidan’s face, just to watch it fall back again. “It was weird… I had this horrible feeling in my gut, and this time it wasn’t Anderson’s ‘special stew’… I wanted to be here so much, I just dropped everything and got here as fast as I could…”  
  
Kaidan rose his eyebrows, blinking his reddened eyes wider. “Seriously..?”  
  
“I promise on everything I have in my inventory…”  
  
“Damn, John, only _you_ could bring up Minecraft right now…”  
  
“I know, sorry, that… Listen, Kaidan… if you need a place to stay, I’m sure I could share my bed again… Do you… want to talk about what happened a little more..?”  
  
“Yeah... you’re the only one I can talk to about this. Eventually I’ll have to call my grandparents, family friends and stuff, but for now… I can talk to you, if you’re willing to listen?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
Kaidan gave a soft smile, probably the best he could manage before he was wrapping his arms around his shins and pressing back against the wall.  
  
“The Alliance officers needed the body identified, but of course he was killed off-planet, so they only had photos…” He trailed off into silence, eyes looking at images that weren’t physically there anymore. “With my Mom so unstable, I knew she couldn’t look at the photos, it would kill her, so  I did it… Just felt so cold looking over the images… The Alliance officers said it was a Geth ambush, but it looked like a bear attack… ripped apart… so much blood…”  
  
John brushed his hand back and forth over Kaidan’s shoulders, sometimes deviating to smooth a thumb over the not-quite healed scar of the amp jack.  
  
“Whether it was artificial mercy by the Geth or just sheer luck, they left my Dad’s face untouched… made identifying him easier… I guess…”  
  
“I’m so sorry…” Shepard whispered from where he sat back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling beside his biotic friend, just touching the back of his fingers against Kaidan’s thigh from where it lay on the mattress beside him, just grounding himself to Kaidan.

“Yeah… me too…” He felt a weight against his shoulder, and side glanced Kaidan resting his head there, too exhausted to keep his head up any longer. “Shepard, do you remember your parents at all… even slightly..?”

 

Shepard almost grimaced at the question.

 

“A little, only blurred faces and comforting voices - I was too young when they … died… to remember much.” Shepard cleared his throat. “But you had the time to build real memories with your Dad, so it must hurt like a bitch, right..?”  
  
“Right.” Kaidan murmured.  
  
“But, you can hold onto those memories.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Shepard sighed hard and heavy, then lifted his hand and curled his fingers into Kaidan’s soft, untamed locks of black hair. He lingered, eyes falling shut and then settled his cheekbone against Kaidan’s head.  
  
“Did your Dad know you decided to join the Alliance..?”  
  
“Yeah, it was his idea.”

 

“Did he know about the biotics?”  
  
“Of course he did. He was the one who put me forward for the L2 implant trials. I’m not sure he knew I was going to have it activated, but… I don’t know.”  
  
“You know, that’s gonna be fucking awesome. You’re gonna be an Asari, but with less tits.”  
  
Kaidan snorted and shifted closer, his right hand sliding closer to Shepard’s resting against his thigh.  
  
“I think you prefer me without tits anyway.” He whispered.  
  
“Definitely.”  
  
“Hey, Shep, this is gonna sound fucking weird, but… have you ever just been with someone and wanted to fuck them so bad, but the situation’s always been wrong..?”

 

Shepard held his breath.

 

_One… two…three…four…_

“Yeah…” He exhaled.  
  
 _One…two…three…four…_

“Like… you’ve just wanted to get home and stick your hand down your pants and forget about every trouble because _this person_ smiled at you today _._ ”

 

_He can’t be talking about me. I always smile at him. Right..?_

“Yeah… Yeah, I’ve had that.” John swallowed.  
  
“And then you realise you can’t _tell_ them, which is when you want to stick your hand down _their_ pants, or your own pants in front of them because you can’t find the words to describe how you feel… And you start going crazy because you’re with them almost every day and you want to stay friends because you’re scared, but at the same time you want so much more.”  
  
Shepard came close to choking on his own breath, so he sucked in slow and steady and adjusted his fingers in Kaidan’s hair to slide down to the back of his neck.

 

“Yeah.” He could feel himself beginning to harden within his jeans. He could picture Kaidan, hand wrapped around his hard prick, rubbing and twisting his palm at the head, whispering sweet nothings to a man who was only in his mind and…

 

And he’d done that in _his_ shower, round _his_ house a week or so prior.

 

 “Hey, Shep… I… I’m gonna… yeah…”  
  
Shepard didn’t say anything to voice his confusion, so simply remained as Kaidan slid his hand down inside his own trousers and moaned softly at his own touch. He rose an eyebrow immediately, but turned to watch what his friend was up to regardless of the chills spiking through him.

 

 _Ok, there’s still a chance he meant me._ Shepard mused, eyes fixed on the rippling movements Kaidan’s fingers made beneath his jeans as he touched himself. _It doesn’t matter because this is hotter than any porn I’ve watched or read._

 

“Whenever I-I’m with you, Shep… I just… just wanna…” He sighed, rolling his hips up against the hand inside his pants. “… _need_ to… _yeah._ ”

_Definitely meant me._

  
John continued to watch, eyes deviating from the movement beneath the jeans to the look of bliss slowly developing over Kaidan’s features, then back again. His fingers went to his own jeans and pulled them open, a small sound of relief escaping him when his hard cock became less confined.

 

Suddenly, Kaidan pulled his hand free from his own trousers and immediately went after Shepard.

Shepard didn’t say anything to voice his confusion, so simply remained as Kaidan slid his hand down the inside of his thighs and brushed his palm over his exposed dick. He sucked in a sharp breath, jolting forward, ready to bolt before he realised just _what was happening_.  
  
“Kaidan…” He breathed, widening his legs a little as the other’s hand pressed more firmly. “K-Kaidan, what are you doing..?”  
  
“Repaying you…” The biotic sighed and pulled the trousers and briefs down to Shepard’s knees, watching the half hard prick slowly become more erect. “Really wanna do this…”  
  
John couldn’t speak, let alone argue, or remind Kaidan he didn’t need thanking, he could barely breathe anyway, so didn’t do much in the way of stopping Kaidan when he bent down and clasped the head of his cock between his lips.  
  
Shepard groaned freely, running his fingers through the black mess of hair. He shouldn’t have let Kaidan continue, shouldn’t have let him pull his cock out or open his trousers, but John was weak for the man, both physically and emotionally and before long, he was writhing against the mattress, hand pressed against his lips as he struggled to hold his load.  
  
Kaidan didn’t seem bothered by Shepard’s internal dilemma and went about drawing his head back and forth on his prick, alternating between hard sucks and quick slides, and then added a hand to roll Shepard’s balls. His breath escaped hot against the curls of hair at the base, saliva running heavy with pre-come from between Kaidan’s lips and it was increasingly hard to ignore the wet noises coming from the action.  
  
Shepard opened his mouth to warn Kaidan of his impending orgasm, his cock throbbing fiercely between the drawn-tight lips and the tongue pressing harshly against his vein, it was increasingly difficult. “Kaidan~” He gasped, bucking his hips from the mattress, hearing it squeak under him at the motion. “I-I’m going~”  
  
Kaidan only took him deeper, sucked twice then squeezed his base with his fingers before scraping his teeth up the length- and Shepard was gone. He convulsed, head knocking back on the wall as he seethed for air, cock bursting white hot down his friend’s throat. He squirmed, tried to stifle his moaning with his knuckles between his teeth, but the attempt was futile and he was pouring a steady stream of curses, moans and _Kaidan_ as he rode out his orgasm.  
  
Kaidan finally pulled away once Shepard unleashed a whimper of over sensitivity, dropping his sated cock against his thigh and licking his lips. Shepard couldn’t remember if Kaidan spat or swallowed.  
  
“Good..?” He panted, wiping his mouth with his wrist.  
  
Shepard could only nod.  
  
There wasn’t much of a reply from Kaidan, but Shepard felt the boy slump onto his back next to him, then snapped his eyes open at the sound of a familiar moan, this time muffled slightly by the sound of slick skin on skin. He looked over, swallowing thickly at the sight of Kaidan jerking himself so hard, so fast, so _desperate_ for the orgasm.  
  
“Huh, Shepard, nnh… Shep!” Kaidan gasped, digging the heels of his boots into the mattress. “Fuck, Shepard, feels so good…”  
  
“Kaidan.” John couldn’t move, couldn’t so much as utter anything other than Kaidan’s name as he watched. Finally, he moved his hand and pushed Kaidan’s shirt up, bunching it up around his armpits. He wanted to see more of his friend, more skin, more emotion, more _everything_.  
  
“Shep~” He closed his eyes, listening to the gasps and grunts coming from his friend, burning it to memory in case this never happened again. But he wanted the image too, so opened his eyes again and watched smooth movements of Kaidan’s hand over his prick, smearing pre-come over the skin for ease of motion. “Fuck, touch me, Shepard.”  
  
John did as he was told, moving his hands from bunching Kaidan’s t-shirt around his chest, down to the slightly softer, but just as toned stomach, then further to the trail of hair leading down from belly button to genitals. He slipped his hand further, brushing his finger and thumb in a ring around the base of Kaidan’s prick, feeling the side of Kaidan’s hand brush his every so often.

 

“John!” Kaidan choked as he squeezed, applying pressure just in the right spot to deny Kaidan the orgasm that had been so close to the surface. He watched him pull his hand away and grab the mattress over his head, thrashing against the pressure and trying to buck his hips to get John’s fingers off, but he was enjoying this new side of himself too much.

 

 _Well, never knew I was such an asshole…_ He mused.  
  
He finally moved his fingers and swept them up the length to the sensitive head, where he gave a gentle twist and a pull and that was it for Kaidan. He gave a series of short aborted breaths as he came against his stomach, his shirt saved from the mess thanks to Shepard’s earlier adjustment.

 

Shepard slumped away onto the mattress beside Kaidan, eyes staring at the ceiling, trying to see anything at all now the electric lantern had run out of juice beside them. Kaidan shifted next to him, probably trying to find something to wipe the mess he’d made off with.  
  
They lay in silence after that. Breathless, hearts pounding in their throats, sweat accumulated in uncomfortable areas and dicks spent resting outside of their open trousers. John seriously couldn’t understand Kaidan on some rare occasions, but this time, it was like he understood completely, well almost.  
  
“It… doesn’t matter… what happens… I’ll always help you…” John swallowed, opening his mouth to catch his breath faster. “You don’t owe me anything, you don’t have to thank me… it’s what friends, or whatever we are, do… I know you’d do the same for me anyway…”

 

“I wanted to show you how I felt… every time I see you, see your name, think about you, hear your voice, or anything _associated_ with you, I just… I want to lose control like I did just now, but I know I shouldn’t…” Kaidan slowly sat up and reached into John’s pocket, feeling for the phone inside before withdrawing it. He clicked the screen on and shone the light over John’s face to see through the darkness, then backed off a little with the light when Shepard grimaced.  
  
“Are you saying you _regret_ what we did..?” John whispered.  
  
“No. I’m saying if _you_ regret what we did, I’m not sure what I’d do…” Kaidan shrugged, glancing off into the darkness. “I should… get home.”  
  
“You’re coming to my place.”  
  
Kaidan gave Shepard a raised eyebrow, tired eyes struggling to show any sort of mirth.  
  
“No, I meant, you can’t go home, you’ll be alone, I don’t want you to be… Come with me, please..?” John reached up, touching Kaidan’s face and running a thumb along a pronounced cheek bone. “I want you with me.”  
  
“Can’t we stay here..? It’s a warm night and… and, to be honest, I don’t want Anderson giving me the whole Alliance familiar soldier’s sympathy bullshit. I got enough of that from the officers back home.”  
  
“Yeah… sure, OK, we’ll stay here.” John whispered. “Though Anderson would be in bed by now, but I guess there would be the morning to worry about and-”  
  
“John…”  
  
He looked up, his phone now resting between them on the bed, offering what little light it could.  
  
“…Yeah?”  
  
“Sleep.” He stared, then closed his eyes as a pair of lips brushed his forehead, then pressed a gentle kiss between his eyes. He moaned, a soft breath that warmed the other’s chin and he slid his arms around Kaidan’s waist once he’d settled over his body.  
  
“Can’t we make out instead..? Sleep sounds so boring …” He craned his head higher, trying to get a taste of the lips which had given him such pleasure only moments before.  
  
“You… you really want to..? With me..?”  
  
“No, with the floor – of course you.” Shepard chuckled, lips moving against the other’s chin, then trying to slant over Kaidan’s plush, silky lips. He hesitated, gently sucking on the lower lip, the one he could reach as Kaidan _tried_ to say something.

 

“Hm..?” John moaned.  
  
The biotic pulled away, licking the saliva from his lip. “I said; how come you never told me you liked me like _this..?_ ” He breathed, clicking the screen of Shepard’s phone back on.  
  
“I’m a bit confused too to be honest… How come _you_ never told me you… felt this way..?” John craned up, attempting to finally get a kiss, but again Kaidan foiled his plan.  
  
“You first…” He grinned.  
  
“… Well, I didn’t want to ruin us, you know? Friends since tiny kids, a feeling, something I never understood until I realised I wasn’t _like_ most guys… that I was _into_ most guys… into _you_ Kaidan… And we were both young at the time, not legal, so I had to supress it… I guess I just got good at hiding my feelings in the end…” John paused, swallowing with difficulty. “I didn’t want you to think I had just fucked you and left you, I didn’t want to _scare_ you… I want more.”  
  
“Huh…” Kaidan responded simply, running his thumb and index finger over Shepard’s lips from where he lay over the top of him. “ _More_ huh..?”  
  
“Yeah… _a lot more._ ” John insisted. “I want _you_ , in _my_ life, as _my_ partner in _everything_ … I love you.”  
  
Kaidan smiled, running his fingers back through Shepard’s hair, feeling the sandy brown strands between his fingertips and tucking what he could behind his ear.  
  
“I love you too, Shep. Damn… this changes things a lot.” He whispered and then stopped, the smile draining from his face.  
  
“Kaidan..?”  
  
“I… I never got the chance…” He closed his eyes tight, fighting tears that had already escaped down his cheeks. “I never got the chance to tell Dad I’m… He’ll never know about me and you…” He pulled away and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, teeth bearing as a pained sob tore up his throat. “And fuck knows how Mom’s gonna react.”  
  
“Hey, hey… It’s gonna get better, I promise.” Shepard whispered, drawing Kaidan back down onto him. “I’m here for whenever you need me.”  
  
“Thanks, Shep.” He sniffed and twisted his fist into Shepard’s shirt.

 

                                                                          ***

 

_The week following the funeral, Kaidan had gone to stay with his grandparents in California. His Mom had been a wreck before, during and after the funeral, and it was tough having to see Kaidan hold her up almost the whole time. John had wanted to help, but Kaidan had simply shook his head, smiled and John had wiped the tears from his eyes instead, taking caution to dry his cheeks without looking like he was caressing them as well – they still had to tell their friends and family after all._

_So he’d just been Kaidan’s rock, ready to steady him the second he turned round with fresh tears in his eyes and a plea that John “please, just… you know, yeah…” – which roughly translated to; “I don’t care who’s watching, hold me, please.” And John did, standing in a suit that felt wrong against his skin, but with Kaidan against him, everything was OK again – and he hoped that rubbed off on Kaidan too.  
  
And when he lost track of Kaidan at the wake, he knew the one place Kaidan was, and there wasn’t much in the way of places he could be anyway with the wake being held at the Alenko household – so close to a certain maize field.  
  
He’d found Kaidan in the trailer, suit jacket resting beside him on the mattress and black tie loosened from his throat. John had sighed, leant against the doorframe and watched as Kaidan gazed in return, a broken look behind his eyes he tried to hide with an equally fragmented smile.  
  
They’ve been looking for you. John wanted to say. They’re worried sick, you can’t just run off, your Mom would have lost her shit regardless of the sedatives.  
  
“I love you…” He said instead, pulling away from the doorframe to kneel in front of his partner. “Did you hear me, Kaidan..? I love you so much, you worried me when I couldn’t find you…”  
  
Kaidan had turned his face against the hand caressing his cheek and pressed a kiss to the palm, John’s fingers moist with the tears still clinging to Kaidan’s face._

_“I heard you… I know, I’m sorry… Just needed some air.”  
  
And then they’d kissed, finally. Their first kiss shared in the trailer they’d claimed as their own for almost 4 years now, between tears and slightly puffy eyes and lips bitten red, they kissed at last._

 

John remembered the taste even now, touching a finger to his lips as he sat on the sofa with James curled against his side, watching Thomas the tank engine and what must have been the 30th episode that day.

 

“Gotta get you watching something with a little less trains, buddy.” He murmured almost to himself. He sighed as the doorbell went and tipped his head back to yell at anyone else to get it, when he realised the only other beings in the house were the houseplants and Anderson’s cat.

 

Though he was sure Anderson would be on his way home by now, he was also pretty damn certain he had a _key._ The only way Shepard was figuring out who was at the door was to answer the damn thing.  
  
“Just gonna get the door, James.” He smiled to the boy, carefully manoeuvring the child to sit against the back of the sofa, dark eyes forever glued to the blue tank engine on the screen. He briefly wondered if he heard him, but the subtle little nod James gave was all the answer he needed.  
  
He opened the door, cringing lightly at the sun glaring straight into his eyes. “Hello..?” His lazy brain kicked in far too late as he recognised the two people standing on the doorstep. “Mrs Alenko?” He blurted.  
  
“Hey Shep, er, John.” Kaidan cleared his throat, gesturing vaguely with his hands. “Listen, er... Mom wanted to talk to Anderson, er….”  
  
“Yes, it’s very important.” Mrs Alenko smiled softly, more tiredly, Shepard guessed. He opened his mouth to tell them that Anderson wasn’t home yet when he noticed Anderson’s car pulling up to the drive and made busy tucking his shirt in when Mrs Alenko turned to watch Anderson get out.  
  
“Mrs Alenko, hello there!” Anderson called more out of shock than greeting, but he covered his tracks well with a smile. “Kaidan, it’s good to see you both. Shepard, don’t keep them at the door, invite them inside!”  
  
“Sorry, sure, come on in, living room is on the right. Don’t worry about James, he won’t mind if you turn the TV off.” Shepard stood aside, letting the two inside and trying to stifle a reaction when he felt Kaidan’s fingers rib down his side on the way past, the act deliberate, as if to say; _“I missed you”_ without words.  
  
He followed Kaidan, wishing he could reach forward, wrap his arms around his waist and pull him close so his scent rubbed off on him, but with people watching, that would have been an uncomfortable situation.  
  
“It’s good to see you again in Vancouver.” Anderson started as he took a seat beside James, allowing the boy to crawl into his lap and welcome him with a cuddle. “And my sincere sympathy for your loss, it’s hard losing someone to war.”  
  
Shepard sat next to Kaidan, giving his knee a gentle squeeze when the biotic lowered his gaze to the carpet and swallowed. He directed his gaze to Shepard once he felt a second squeeze on his knee, then smiled softly at the reassuring blue set on him.  
  
“It is…” Mrs Alenko sighed, before straightening up. “But thank you, the Alliance have been offering support and it’s done a world of good. Boys…” Mrs Alenko turned to Kaidan and John. “If you wouldn’t mind, could you give Mr Anderson and I some time to talk privately..?”  
  
“Sure.” Shepard answered, getting up from the sofa. “You want me to take James, Anderson?”  
  
“No, he should be fine with us. Thank you.”

 

 He nodded, then turned and swept his hand over the lower part of Kaidan’s back as he escorted them from the room. They went up the stairs and into John’s room, who almost immediately grabbed his friend into a tight hug.  
  
“Jesus…”  
  
“I know.” The biotic sighed, fingers curling into Shepard’s t-shirt.  
  
“What does your Mom want with Anderson anyway..?” John closed his eyes, taking in his partner’s scent as he pressed his lips against his shoulder.  
  
“I don’t know. She just wanted to talk to him, didn’t give me the specifics…” Kaidan hesitated, before pulling away enough to slide his fingers round to John’s chest, where he started to pull the fabric of his t-shirt from his waistband. “My guess; she’s trying to find someone who understands their lover being killed in service. Anderson’s wife was died whilst serving, right..?”  
  
“Yeah.” Shepard sighed. “I was only 5 at the time, but I remember. Kahlee was awesome.”  
  
“I hope Mom doesn’t open old wounds with him then, I like Anderson, and I wouldn’t want him suffering too…”  
  
“How is your Mom?”  
  
“She’s OK when she’s on the sedatives and anti-depressants. Take her off them though and it’s like two sides of the same coin, only one scary, irrational, constantly crying side, and the other utterly normal.” Kaidan hesitated, then lent up and pushed his lips against Shepard’s, taking a deep breath once that tingling urge inside him had been somewhat sated. “Shit, I missed you a lot.”  
  
“Same here. Text messages aren’t enough.”  
  
“I know.” Kaidan toyed with Shepard’s belt for a second, before flexing his fingers and leaving it be. “Come to the trailer tonight, yeah? I wanna talk to you in private.”  
  
“Well, we’re in private now, so if you want to talk…?” John rose an eyebrow, his fingers touching the newly tanned skin of his partner’s arms, before sweeping up and smoothing over his shoulders.  
  
“And I thought I was clueless.” Kaidan grumbled to himself, mostly. “I mean… I want to _see_ you privately… I wanna see you _naked_ , Shepard.”  
  
John’s brain must have blown a fuse because he struggled to supply a response when Kaidan stepped closer, against him, and pressed a chaste kiss to his lips.  
  
“OK.” His voice _almost_ cracked.  
  
“Really?” The biotic blinked, eyes sweeping over John’s face. “You really want to?”  
  
“Of course. We’ve wasted enough time already. I want to touch you, hold you, kiss every part of you.” Shepard pushed Kaidan against the wall beside his door, taking a hold of a pair of wrists in his hands where he pinned them above Kaidan’s head. “As long as you want it.”  
  
“Mn, you know I do, Shep.” He bit his lip and rolled his hips forward, giving a subtle grind against Shepard’s groin. “I’m always thinking about you, about your lips and your rough fingers…”  
  
John pushed his lips hard against Kaidan’s and forced him against the wall more, moaning and breathing from their noses as tongues joined the dance of lips.  
  
“I don’t know if I can hold out til tonight, K.” Shepard groaned, attacking Kaidan’s neck.

 

“I want you too, Shep…” He panted. “Fuck, I’ve wanted you all my damn _fucking_ life.”

 

Kaidan pulled away for a second to pull his shirt off over his head, and then removed John’s in a similar fashion.  
  
Shepard closed his eyes, feeling fingernails dig into the base of his skull and he knew exactly where Kaidan wanted him to go, so he went willingly, trailing moist kisses down his stomach until he could tug open the tight jeans and free the hardened flesh beneath.  
  
“You’ve got me, always have…” He stopped, swiping his tongue up the column of flesh and tasting not much until his tongue hit the slit, salt taste bursting in his mouth. “Hn, want you so much.”  
  
“So prepare me, Shep…”  
  
John almost came in his sweats just thinking about it, and Kaidan was going to let him? He couldn’t love Kaidan anymore than with his entire heart, but he’d be damned if he didn’t try. His lips surrounded the tip, his lips biting over his teeth as he gathered spit, then slid down and up a few times. Kaidan took a deep breath and shuddered softly, thighs relaxing either side of Shepard’s head.  
  
“Shep, come on…”  
  
He pulled off with a soft pop and rose his eyebrow in question.  
  
“Are you sure..?”  
  
“Yeah.”

Shepard glanced briefly at the door they’d failed to close.

 

Kaidan pushed the door shut quietly, with his foot, before being pinned against it by John’s weight and having the air kissed from his lungs. He gasped, grabbing the sandy brown hair as lips and teeth alike attacked his neck. He’d only done this once, and it had gone horribly wrong, but with Shepard, Kaidan felt like he could take on the galaxy, let alone a bleeding arsehole.

 

They eventually made it to the bed, their trousers and boxers lost in the small trip, but neither of them missed them as their hands explored each other, as if touching one another for the first time, fingers biting into hair or leaving red marks over ribs.  
  
“Turn over…” Shepard eventually gasped, “It- uh, it’s easier.”  
  
“I know… yeah…” Kaidan propped himself up on his knees and elbows, ducking his head down into his hands in something akin to _bracing_.

 

“Gonna…” Shepard swallowed, mouthing over the scar on the back of Kaidan’s neck. “Yeah…” The lube was already in his hands and he squeezed a healthy amount into his palm, spreading it thick over his fingers.  
  
One finger slid inside, and Kaidan tensed, expecting the worst, but it was OK. He closed his eyes, panting against his wrists as it worked back and forth, touching places he’d never had the guts to touch himself even when breathless, wanting, _needing_ more than anything to just pretend someone was inside him.  
  
Only now someone was, and this someone was Shepard, the life-long friend he’d never been apart from, and now they were actually doing _this_ , something he’d waited so _damn_ long for…  
  
He felt a headache building just trying to figure it out.  
  
“Kaidan, I’m gonna … add another…”  
  
“Do it, don’t tell me…” He shuddered, opening his lips against the tendons in his wrist wider as another finger slid home inside him. It was utterly surreal. Only a week or so ago, they had been playing minecraft, trying to explain to a two year old why Shepard’s dog kept attacking Kaidan’s character.

 

They hadn’t mentioned Kaidan’s earlier attempt to kill Shepard after Shepard had stolen all the bones from his chest to get the dog, who turned on Kaidan to protect its Master, cos that was nerdy just thinking about.  
  
 _Especially during sex._

But the point was, they had been _friends_ , nothing more, no matter how much Shepard wished they were. And now they actually _were more_ and Shepard was _still_ trying to get over that.

 

“More.” Kaidan choked and found himself bucking full-force back against Shepard’s fingers. There must have been three in him by that point. “Shepard, please.”  
  
“K…” 

He didn’t know if he was breathing his nick-name or agreeing, but it didn’t take long for him to find out. He listened to Shepard behind him, something slick sliding over skin and it was probably Shepard lubricating himself – the thought was nearly too much as he curved his spine inwards.

 

“Kaidan…”  
  
“Yeah..?”  
  
“I need you to relax… It’s gonna hurt, but… just trust me, m’kay? Gonna fade, promise…”

 

“Yeah, gonna trust you, Shep. Always…” He reached back and found Shepard’s hand on his hip, giving it a firm and stable squeeze.  
  
“M’gonna…” He linked his fingers with Kaidan’s and drew his other hand down to press his tip against the slick, twitching entrance ready for him. He released a breath filled with nerves, trembling and utterly _losing his mind_ to the circumstances of this. He pushed forward and felt the once damaged ring stretch around him, trying to keep him out, but he knew he wanted to be nowhere else more.  
  
Kaidan was obviously uncomfortable and it was clear he was hiding it too, but Shepard could read him and brought his hips to a halt long enough that Kaidan could catch his breath. John could feel Kaidan’s fingernails cutting crescent shapes into his skin from where their hands were joined, and Shepard wanted to tell him he was hurting him, but he couldn’t find it in him when it was Shepard causing pain in the first place.  
  
But, like Shepard had said, the pain ebbed away, leaving behind only pressure. He released his grip on John’s hand and tucked his hand under himself to bring his erection back to life.  
  
“Keep going…” He shuddered.  
  
Shepard wanted to argue, but how was he to know if Kaidan was still feeling pain? It wasn’t his body, even if he was inside it. A flare of heat tore down him as that reality hit him hard. He slammed his hips home out of sheer reflex and gasped against the back of Kaidan’s neck, whereas Kaidan just cried out, body seizing up unwillingly.  
  
“Shit, I’m sorry, I- uh~”  
  
“It’s ok, it felt good…” Kaidan shuddered and Shepard could still see the arm flexing under him, working hard over his erection.  
  
“Can I start moving..?”  
  
“Yeah… Please…”  
  
So John moved, pulling his hips back slow and steady, before slamming forward again and knocking their air from his partner’s lungs. He did it again, faster this time, then pulled Kaidan’s hand out from under him and pinned them both to the bed.  
  
“Don’t come until I say so…” He groaned into his ear, rolling his hips leisurely.  
  
“Mn, so controlling…”  
  
“No, it’s for your own good, trust me.”  
  
Kaidan tipped his head forward, spine arching and hips rolling as Shepard fucked into him again.  
  
“You don’t have to tell me to trust you, or ask. I already do… I just… Fuck, harder, Shepard.”  
  
John groaned louder and began less than forgiving thrusts. He knew Kaidan wouldn’t be able to hold his tongue if he was hurting him, it would have been obvious, so when the younger biotic began to gasp and try to grind his dick into the pillows propped under his hips, Shepard could tell it was from pleasure and that alone.  
  
He couldn’t help himself anymore, he left bite marks down Kaidan’s back and was probably burying bruises into his hips, but those were the things he _wanted_ to leave behind, then reapply every single night.  
  
He wanted Kaidan to leave marks on him, to fuck him, to touch him all over, there wasn’t going to be a _top or bottom_ in this relationship, it was just them and no one had to know their business to label them otherwise.  
  
“Kaidan, I…” John felt himself approaching the precipice, he wasn’t even sure Kaidan could hear him through the noise of skin against skin and the beautiful, breathy moans he was tearing from his throat, but he tried anyway. “Can… I… inside you, or…”  
  
“Inside… m-please, let me come.” Kaidan begged, fingers clawing the sheets beneath them hard. “Please, Shepard, I need to come!”  
  
Shepard shifted forward, forcing Kaidan up onto his knees enough he could throw the pillows out from under him and wrap a firm hand around his lover’s prick. Kaidan tensed up immediately, a wet gasp echoing into the room as everything suddenly went _very tight_.  
  
John choked out a curse and emptied himself, riding with half strength until he heard Kaidan whimpering, far too sensitised to continue as he collapsed against the headboard, hands barely holding the strength to keep himself from face-planting the mattress. He felt something across his fingers, definitely come, it was too hot and thick to be anything else. Kaidan’s come on his fingers. He shuddered at the very thought, wanting so much to taste it, but deciding that’d be weird on their first time.  
  
He swallowed and steadied himself, whispering something about taking a breath to Kaidan as he carefully slid himself out and shuddered pleasantly doing it. No blood at least, he mused.  
  
“Shep…” Kaidan panted as he cautiously turned onto his stomach, _testing the waters_ as such before settling his weight completely onto his backside. He grimaced, John caught that, but that was to be expected. “Shep, that was… I feel…”  
  
“Fucked..?”  
  
Kaidan laughed, shaking his head softly as he pulled tissues from the draw, tugging some free to hand to John. “Something like that…”  
  
“Better than the first..?” He inquired, wiping the come from his fingers.  
  
“Mhmm… I thought it was hot when you gave me the order not to come… I mean, I get why now, being over sensitive and you still fucking hard, but it was still a massive turn on.”  
  
“Hn, yeah, well, next time, you’ll be making the orders… I want you inside me just the same…” John kissed Kaidan, something light, but a promise for more later on. “I love you, Kaidan…”  
  
“I love you too.” No pause, it didn’t need thought, it was just on the tip of his tongue constantly. Kaidan opened his eyes and traced the distinct features of Shepard’s face. The sharp nose, the plush lips, the piercing blue eyes that expressed so much, if only to him, and the beautiful sandy brown hair now stuck with sweat to his forehead.  
  
“We’ve been so blind for so long.” He whispered. “Wanting each other so much but too afraid to admit it…”  
  
“In my defence, I thought you were straight.”  
  
“Heh, yeah, I kept my cards close to my chest… I didn’t want to get hurt, just as much as I didn’t want you getting scared off… I wanted to be sure.”  
  
“Is this sure enough..?” John grinned softly, playful even when so exhausted and spent. Kaidan didn’t reply as he slipped his fingers into Shepard’s hair and sighed evenly.  
  
“John, I need to ask; are you sure you want to enlist with me..? Your grades are good, you could get successful jobs doing anything… Don’t enlist because I’m enlisting.”  
  
“Yeah, you think I _want_ to be doing _anything_? Do you really think I _want_ to be anywhere else..? I want to be with you doing something I really believe in, you know?” John hesitated, but not for long before he was pushing his lips tightly against Kaidan’s, smiling uncontrollably.

 

“We better get dressed. Shit, I hope they didn’t hear us.”  
  
“Nah, shouldn’t think so. Floor’s pretty thick.” Shepard stretched out, twisting his wrists and moaning softly. “I’m guessing after all that you _still_ want to meet at the trailer tonight?”  
  
“We need to catch up anyway, it’ll be nice to talk somewhere private.” Kaidan pondered for a moment and then pulled himself out of bed with a breathy grunt.  
  
“Did I hurt you?” John frowned.  
  
Kaidan shook his head whilst pulling up his boxers, snapping the elastic and shifting the fabric to fit comfortably around his groin. “No. But I bet you found it difficult to walk properly after your first _proper_ fuck, right?”  
  
“Uh, yeah, true that.” Shepard grimaced. “Luckily I was _driven_ home.”  
  
“Mn, well, if Mom asks, I’ll just say I slept funny in bed or something.”  
  
“Slept funny?” John laughed softly, watching his lover dress himself as he lazed out on the bed, unwilling to do the same regardless of who could walk in. “Well, I suppose you did _something_ in a bed, but sleeping wasn’t it.”

 

“Shep.” Kaidan warned as he buckled his belt. “Come on, get up.”

  
“What for?”  
  
“We’ve been up here for a while, I just wanna see what’s going on downstairs.”

 

John sighed, rolling his head back on the pillow before sitting up and grabbing for his clothes off the side of the bed. “Meeeh…” He groaned unhappily.

 

                                                                        ***

 

“Ah, Shepard, Kaidan, I was hoping you’d both come down soon.”  
  
“Do you want us to take James for you, if you’re still talking that is..?” John gestured to James, sitting quietly between Mrs Alenko and Anderson on the couch, quietly playing with his toy cooking set.

 

“No, no, we would like you to sit down. Mr Anderson- uh, Admiral Anderson and I have been talking, and … well, we approve. But, there’s things we have to warn you about.”

 

Kaidan took a seat on the armchair whilst Shepard straddled the arm, both of them sharing similar confused expressions, yet they didn’t have to look at each other to know they were both realising with horror just _what_ Anderson and Mrs Alenko wanted to talk about.

 

“I um… pardon?” Kaidan finally whispered. John was still staring.

 

“You’re both over 18, you’re both legal… We don’t think you’re going to be stupid about this, we know you’ve both thought this through for years, but we just want to know you’re going to do it _safely._ ” Anderson shrugged and leant further forward in his seat. “There are risks, you both know it, some don’t even make it through the first few years.”

 

“What… wha-what?” Shepard frowns.  
  
“John, if you’re going to be doing this with my son, you should be aware of the risks. There’s so many things that can go wrong, I don’t want either of you hurt.” Mrs Alenko sighed, settling back against the sofa as she fidgeted with her hands, a sign of nervousness or anxiety, and Shepard wasn’t the only one to pick up on it.

 

“Mom, is this really necessary? And with Anderson..?”

 

“Son, I care about Shepard more than any God damn person on this planet or the next, I don’t want him diving head first into something he’s going in blind for, it’s suicide.”  
  
“And, yes, Kaidan, it is _very_ necessary. And I’m not happy about this, don’t you forget. But, if it is your life’s choice, I can’t stand in your way. It’s _you_ who’s responsible for your actions, not me, not anymore.”

 

“Not happy?” John suddenly snapped. “ _Not happy_?”

  
“Shepard?” Anderson barked, but it sounded more out of question than any sort of threat. “Son, mind your temper around Mrs Alenko.”

 

“What’s wrong with Kaidan’s life choice? It’s the same as mine, so you’re not happy about my choice either? Or thousands – no – millions of other men in this galaxy? Shit, we’ve got aliens of every size and shape and sexuality, but we as humans still can’t accept our own for theirs?"

 

“If you knew about Shepard and I, why didn’t you just confront me with it, you usually do about everything else.” Kaidan placed a placating hand against Shepard’s flank and felt the angry hammering pulse beneath the heated skin.

 

It was then they realised both Mrs Alenko and Anderson were staring.

 

Realisation dawned in a cold chill over four of the five people in attendance. James sat, still blissfully unaware.

 

There was a silence across the room. A minute passed, and then another as they all exchanged wide-eyed and shocked glances across the room.

 

“You weren’t… talking about…”

 

“Shepard… We were… talking about joining the Alliance.” Anderson said slowly.

 

“Oh my God.” Kaidan whispered as he pushed his face into his hands, drawing a deep breath between his fingers. “Oh my _fucking God._ ”

  
“Kaidan.” Mrs Alenko breathed. “Kaidan, is this true?”

 

“Shepard?” Anderson also called. “What…” He couldn’t finish.

 

John looked from Mrs Alenko to Anderson, then back again. He felt his heart pounding further up his throat. He felt sick, he needed air, he needed some water or a bucket or something. He chose air as he quickly pulled off the arm of the chair and made a B-line for the front door.  
  
“Shep!” He heard Kaidan yell after him, and then mimicking footsteps. He found himself down by the mail box and reached to get the gate unlocked before a set of hands were clasping his forearms and tugging him around.  
  
“Shepard.”  
  
“Kaidan, they know, they _fucking know._ ”  
  
“Yeah, I was there, Shep. It’s OK, it’s OK, just…” Kaidan sighed sharply and reached to Shepard’s face, pressing his thumbs either side of his nose. “…calm down. Deep breaths.”

 

John cringed, then heard the sounds coming from his mouth. Quick breathing. He hadn’t even felt his lungs straining against the extra oxygen until Kaidan had told him to breathe properly. He hadn’t had a panic attack for so fucking long, not since the night he realised he _wasn’t like most guys._ And now Alenko’s Mom knew, and Anderson and his word was falling apart and he needed to _run_ and-

 

“John.” Kaidan suddenly growled. “Look at me, don’t close your eyes and do as I _fucking_ say. _Deep breaths_.”

 

Shepard finally did as he was told, he locked eyes with Kaidan’s, concentrating on the amber pools so calm given the circumstances, and he steadied his breathing, taking controlled inhales, counting to 5, and then out again until his heart stopped hammering against his throat. He moved back a step, taking Kaidan’s hands from his face and holding them in his own.  
  
“I’m sorry.” He muttered.

 

“Don’t be. We both thought they were talking about… well, it wasn’t clear _what_ they were talking about, in our defence.” Kaidan chuckled, but he was still worried, the twist in his brow proved as much. “But… at least we don’t have to _come out_ in the traditional sense. We er… accidently achieved that just now.”  
  
“Yeah, in style, as always, K.”  
  
“Uhuh, but we should still clear the air.” Kaidan lifted one of John’s hands and pressed a delicate, loving kiss to the backs of the knuckles there. “I think that probably did it.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“They’re watching from the doorway, Shep.”  
  
John restrained himself from turning to see Anderson and Mrs Alenko watching them, though it wasn’t hard to do with Kaidan so handsome and _all his_ in front of him. So he smiled, pulled his hand free and slid his fingertips behind Kaidan’s ear, gently pulling him forward as he leant in and kissed those plush lips that had been the source of all his fantasies for so _damn_ long.

 

Kaidan pushed back into the kiss, but with his mother and Anderson watching, he didn’t apply tongue or open his lips too much, there was such thing as decency, especially when out beside a public road.

 

So, when Shepard pulled away, slowly, but surely, he smiled, face flush from emotions he still couldn’t fully understand.

 

But he knew one thing at least.

 

“I love you, so damn much, Kaidan Alenko.” And he said it loud enough for everyone within a few metres to hear. Anderson’s cat tilted its head a couple feet away, before resuming licking itself.

 

“Heh, I love you too, John Shepard. You er… You know fraternisation in the Alliance is illegal, right?”  
  
“It’s what?!”  
  
  
 ** _END_**

 

 

_Author’s note: - I will probably be writing a sequel to this, when Shepard and Kaidan finally join the bottom of the Alliance whilst in training. I have a full-time job and other responsibilities, so it’ll be a while before anything new comes up for this. I really enjoyed writing this, and I hope not too many of you mind Kaidan having Asperger’s syndrome. I personally have Asperger’s, so it was really quite… I dunno… uplifting being able to talk about it somewhat in this fanfic, usually it’s swept under the rug and forgotten._

 

_I also sincerely apologise for any and all grammar/spelling mistakes, I do not have a beta reader and I generally suck balls regardless._

_So, leave a kudos, comment, send me sexy pictures of cats, whatever expresses how you felt about this story, and if you think it should be continued, give me a shout._

_Thanks for reading, guys, hope to hear from you soon.  
  
MalikRuttingAssassinAss – AKA Georgia Le-Flay_


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